Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation, conflict, complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake up the recipe and add some spice.
Exposition
The Fates Decree
To 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 Neeve has just arrived at their house of psychic ladies, and they all agree that (1) Blue's true love will die if she kisses him, and (2) this is the year she falls in love. When she goes to see the spirits with her Aunt Neeve, she finds out that a boy named Gansey is going to die this year… and that he's either her true love or the person that she kills. Oh, brother.
Rising Action
Boys and Their Toys
As we are introduced to the characters, we also learn about the dangerous things that they're involved in, particularly Gansey's quest to find the body of a dead king named Glendower; he knows that the ley lines will lead him there. Blue joins the boys on their quest and leads them to a magical place called Cabeswater, where the trees start talking to them in Latin.
As tensions rise, the friends stumble upon a body… and realize that it's the long-dead body of their friend Noah, who, as it turns out, is a ghost. He was killed a long time ago by his best friend, Barrington Whelk, who is now their Latin teacher. What a twisted web.
Climax
The Ritual
Now that everyone knows that Barrington Whelk is a murderer who is out to wake the ley lines, things get messy. Things come to a head when Adam leaves home (after a fight with his dad) and decides to go seek the ley lines himself.
Whelk, on the other hand, is kidnapped by Blue's Aunt Neeve, who is also out to perform the ritual so that she can be the most powerful psychic of all time. Meanwhile, Gansey, Blue, and Ronan rush to Cabeswater to stop Adam and stave off Whelk… And that's when Adam throws himself in the middle of the pentagram that Aunt Neeve set up and announces that he's sacrificing himself. Talk about an intense moment.
Falling Action
Aftermath
After Adam sacrifices himself and Whelk attempts to shoot him, Adam escapes completely unscathed. But then a stampede of magical creatures comes onto the scene and tramples through—Blue, Gansey, and Ronan duck for cover, and when they emerge, the animals have cleared. In the aftermath, they see that Adam is still untouched, Whelk is dead (trampled to death), and Neeve has disappeared.
Resolution
Going to a Funeral
At the very end, the raven boys have one last matter to attend to: Noah's ghost has faded because his body is no longer buried on the ley lines, so after attending his funeral, the raven boys and Blue dig up their friend's bones. They transfer his bones to Cabeswater and he reappears—just as solid as a ghost can be. They're the kind of friends who truly leave no man behind, and on that note, we're ready for the next book in the series.