Ooh! What a good question! I suppose my favorite thing about The Raven Cycle is the characters (if that's not such a broad statement as to be completely banal). I ended up desperately committed to this band of friends and the intense bond/friendship/love between them. That combined with the atmosphere/world of the series – there's something so seductive about it. I honestly felt I hadn't been so deeply sucked into a world since Harry Potter. Even though TRC is on a much smaller scale (basically set in one single town, rather than the fairly broad world the HP books eventually expand to) it felt like a world where one could write endless fic, and never run out of possibilities.
It sounds like your complaints about The Raven Cycle are different from my complaints (and I definitely have complaints!) but I'll say just in case it's relevant or interesting to you:
- When I first read the first book of the series, I wasn't captivated at all. It was fine, the story was good and some of the characters were interesting, but nothing about it made me want to commit to the series and keep reading. – A year or two later, I finally circled back and gave the series another try (read book 2, then realized I need to go back and refresh my memory of book 1 first) and completely lost my heart to it, as described above! By the end of the third book, I was like, yes, I want to stay immersed in this world forever! I'm going to reread the whole series as soon as I've finished it the first time, to catch all those wonderful little details in the earlier books that mean so more once you know the later ones! - ...And then I read the fourth and final book, which I found an utter, utter letdown. Totally unworthy of the epic heights of all that came before it. Couldn't decide what to think, because I still loved and wanted to reread the series, and yet hated this part of it. Where do you go from there? I'm actually now doing a series reread after all (and, predictably, have stalled at the point where I should start book 4!) so clearly I am still conflicted.
And that's probably WAY more than you ever wanted to know, but it was such an inspiring question! :D
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It sounds like your complaints about The Raven Cycle are different from my complaints (and I definitely have complaints!) but I'll say just in case it's relevant or interesting to you:
- When I first read the first book of the series, I wasn't captivated at all. It was fine, the story was good and some of the characters were interesting, but nothing about it made me want to commit to the series and keep reading.
– A year or two later, I finally circled back and gave the series another try (read book 2, then realized I need to go back and refresh my memory of book 1 first) and completely lost my heart to it, as described above! By the end of the third book, I was like, yes, I want to stay immersed in this world forever! I'm going to reread the whole series as soon as I've finished it the first time, to catch all those wonderful little details in the earlier books that mean so more once you know the later ones!
- ...And then I read the fourth and final book, which I found an utter, utter letdown. Totally unworthy of the epic heights of all that came before it. Couldn't decide what to think, because I still loved and wanted to reread the series, and yet hated this part of it. Where do you go from there? I'm actually now doing a series reread after all (and, predictably, have stalled at the point where I should start book 4!) so clearly I am still conflicted.
And that's probably WAY more than you ever wanted to know, but it was such an inspiring question! :D