Call Down the Hawk (Dreamer Trilogy #1) by: Maggie Stiefvater

Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Magical Realism
Published: November 5, 2019 by: Scholastic Press
Pages: 472
Rating: 3/5 stars
*this post contains minor spoilers from The Raven Cycle series. Highlight white text to reveal spoilers*

Ronan Lynch is a dreamer, meaning he has the power to pull things out of his dreams and into his reality. Jordan Hennessy is a thief, meaning she is tied to dream objects and will stop at nothing to get them. Carmen Farooq-Lane is a hunter, meaning she is threatened by dreamers and seeks to destroy them. Dreaming is a dangerous task, and Ronan's life is about to experience destruction like no other.

Anybody who knows me knows that I LOVED The Raven Cycle series. I pretty much finished the entire series in a week, and for about three months in 2015 I was a Richard Campbell Gansey III STAN. So naturally when I heard about a Ronan Lynch trilogy, I needed to get my hands on it. While it did satisfy my ache for all things Raven Cycle, I can't exactly call it a favourite.

What I love about Ronan is that he is such a complex character. He is riddled with trauma and inner demons, but is also a sarcastic king and secretly a softie. Him and Adam are one of my OTP's, and I was really glad to get glimpses of their relationship in this text. That being said, I think I needed more of it. I expected more of it.

I love the Lynch family as a whole, so I was happy to get a deeper insight into them through this book. Declan and Matthew have always fascinated me, and I found myself really interested in the Lynch storyline. I found some of my unanswered questions answered, so I thought this was a good companion to the Raven Cycle series.

Maggie Stiefvater writes magical realism so well. I am jealous of her writing style, and how she is able to craft worlds that are so unique and so mysterious. Her writing has such a dream-like quality (pun intended) to it. This book was no exception.

I can't say I was obsessed with this book though. I honestly didn't care much for the new characters introduced, and I just found myself wanting more of Adam, more of Blue, and tbh more of Gansey. I mean, I expected that Blue and Gansey would not be in this book, but that still doesn't mean I didn't hold out a little bit of hope. I think the characters are just so strong in The Raven Cycle that I expected to fall in love with all of these new characters as much as I did with the others. That was not the case.

I also thought this book was a little long for me. It seemed to drag in parts, and I felt that because I wasn't connected with the new characters, I just wanted it to end sooner. I wasn't as emotionally invested in this book as I have been with Stiefvater's other books.

Overall, I don't think I will continue with this series. This book did give me some great nostalgia, but I think I will just re-read The Raven Cycle if I ever want to revisit Ronan's character. That being said, if you're a Raven Cycle fan, it's worth a shot.

Have you read Call Down the Hawk? What did you think?

Emily @ Paperback Princess