Literary Devices in The Raven Boys
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Setting
Henrietta, Virginia, isn't exactly your typical small town in America. It may seem that way—it's full of big wooded areas, bored teenagers, and residential neighborhoods—but in fact, it's a ver...
Narrator Point of View
The entirety of The Raven Boys is told from a third person perspective, which lets us see everything that is going on at any single time. As readers, we get both a point-by-point observation of wha...
Genre
Considering the fact that the characters in The Raven Boys are going on a quest to seek out magical energy lines and the buried body of a Welsh king (who's still alive because he's magical), it's s...
Tone
Considering that almost all of the characters in The Raven Boys die or are threatened by death, it makes sense that the overall tone would be just a little bit bleak. The book doesn't shy away from...
Writing Style
The Raven Boys is a book in which fantastical things happen and the supernatural is a given, but that doesn't mean that it's full of flowery language. Instead, the writing style is matter-of-fact a...
What's Up With the Title?
Like the writing style of the book, the title of The Raven Boys seems straightforward enough. This is indeed a tale about a group of schoolboys from Aglionby Academy who wear raven-crested sweaters...
What's Up With the Epigraph?
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing,Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before…- Edgar Allan Poe A dreamer is one who can only find hi...
What's Up With the Ending?
The Raven Boys ends on a frustratingly open-ended note. First of all, the trees have told the boys that Glendower is buried somewhere… but they haven't found him yet. And the last line of the boo...
Tough-o-Meter
Although the language in the Raven Boys isn't that difficult to understand—unless Gansey is throwing around his big SAT words—the actual storyline is convoluted and takes a savvy reader to unwi...
Plot Analysis
The Fates DecreeTo set the scene, we are introduced to Blue Sargent (a plucky teen girl from a psychic family… yes, really), and a bunch of boys at the snooty local private school. Blue's Aunt Ne...
Trivia
Stiefvater admits to having a serious interest in cars. Maybe that's why Gansey's classic Camaro gets so many mentions in The Raven Boys. (Source)Apparently, Stiefvater didn't always have her disti...
Steaminess Rating
Blue's fate—as foretold by her mom and psychic aunts—has pretty much guaranteed that this won't be a very steamy book. After all, if she so much as kisses a boy that she likes, she runs the ris...
Allusions
Owen Glendower (throughout)