This is me gushing about yet another absolutely fantastic Maggie Stiefvater book.
“You are made of dreams and this world is not for you.”
“Call Down The Hawk“ by Maggie Stiefvater was one of the books that I was looking forward to the most throughout the last year. I got it for Christmas and it took me ages to read it. Which has a lot to do with wanting to take the time to read it and actually sit down for hours on end to devour it.
I have loved Maggie's works ever since I read “Shiver“ more than a decade ago and I have the utmost respect for Maggie as both an author and a human being. “Call Down The Hawk“ is the first in a spin-off trilogy to the tetralogy “The Raven Cycle“, which is probably Maggie's most famous work so far. Personally, I enjoyed it, but it's definitely not my favourite of her stories, which is mainly due to the ambivalent feelings I have about the protagonist. It might be just me, but if Blue existed in real life, I'd not be a fan of hers.
Yet, there were other characters in “The Raven Cycle“ whom I loved and one of them, Ronan, plays quite an important role in “Call Down The Hawk“.
Ronan Lynch has the ability to dream things into reality. While he was still learning how to handle his talent in “The Raven Cycle“ he has now come into his full power. What Ronan doesn't know yet: There are other dreamers. And they are in danger, because one of them might destroy the entire world.
Maggie Stiefvater's prose is just as poignant, compelling, brilliant and special as always. Sentences that sound like rain on a glass roof, descriptions that make you feel like you're right there, and heart-wrenching insights into the human psyche, it's all right there.
Next to Ronan there's a set of other people that we follow around through this intricate net of a story:
There's Farooq-Lane, who belongs to the hunters, the group whose aim it is to find and kill all the dreamers before one of them kicks off the apocalypse. She didn't opt for this life, she just somehow stumbled into it and I am very much looking forward to see her future developments throughout the series.
There's also Hennessy, an artist whose dreams are killing her one by one, and Jordan, who is a dream.
And finally, there's Ronan's brother Declan. I disliked Declan an awful lot in “The Raven Cycle“ and it came as a surprise to me, that I began to not only like him in “Call Down The Hawk” but to root for him. Declan is the ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances here and I was intrigued to see his facade come down bit by bit.
“Call Down The Hawk” definitely left me hungry for more and I am looking forward to reading the next installment in the series.
