Call Down the Hawk (the Dreamer Trilogy, Book 1): Volume 1

Here’s the thing about this book:You shouldn’t read it without having read the Raven Cycle first.But. . . you might be a little let down if you read this after having read the Raven Cycle first.I mean, I guess you could read this as a first book in a new series. It does have that #1 in the series info and all.But I don’t think you should.Your introduction to Ronan Lynch in the Raven Cycle is a legit EXPERIENCE. Learning about who he is in that series is the way to go. It’s a slow gradual thing and it’s awesome. (Your big intro to him in this book is a POV chapter from him and I’m telling you - it’s just not as good.)BUT. If you’ve read the Raven Cycle and are already in love with the characters. . . you might suffer for awhile when you start reading this book. I kinda did.First of all, you’re going to miss a lot of the old characters. Yeah it’s a “new” series so we just need to get over it already and get our mind right but hey it’s gonna happen and you’ll be bummed out. YOU WILL.On top of that, we’re introduced to what feels like at first to be waaaaaayy too many new characters.And the thing about new characters is that you just don’t care about them until you start caring about them.And it took me a LONG time to start caring about them.I’d get impatient and bored during chapters that weren’t from our old familiar characters. I’d put the book down a lot and go do something else. I’d feel like putting it aside like, permanently.I’m glad I didn’t. I can’t really pinpoint when or how it happened, but I did eventually start getting invested in a couple of the new characters and their storylines.Plot-wise, there’s just enough here to keep me interested, but I’m not exactly blown away yet. And this book ended at a really weird place if you ask me, and left me feeling a little annoyed and thinking like, seriously?Also:— if you know from other books you’ve tried that you don’t like Maggie Stiefvater’s writing, this book isn’t going to magically get you to start liking it. You can either deal with it or you can’t.Side note: I like reading about Ronan from other character POVs more than I like reading his own POV. I just do.3.5 stars (and rounding up solely because of a certain specific character!)

This book was a HUGE disappointment!Let me start off by saying, that I’ve read The Raven Cycle multiple times, it is one of my favorite series. I was eagerly awaiting The Dreamer Trilogy, and it breaks my heart to say this, but the magic is gone. Call Down The Hawk is dead and lifeless in so many places, that it is unfathomable. The parts that do sparkle, get bogged down by boredom, frustration, and absolute tedium.Spoilers Ahead:The biggest lie we were told about this book, was that it could be read without having read The Raven Cycle. That is a fallacy. The Raven Cycle bleeds into virtually every corner of this novel. From the Lynch family dynamics, to Ronan/Adam, Gansey’s texts, Opal, the ley line, Cabeswater now re-born as Lindenmere. It is impossible for a new reader to come to this book and have a meaningful experience, without having read the previous four installments, just as it is impossible for a long-time reader to come to it, and pretend what came before it, does not exist, which in some cases, is exactly what we’re asked to do, that is what makes this new trilogy so frustrating. Maggie Stiefvater should never have tried to separate them. These two stories are connected by blood, and should be treated as such.The biggest narrative failure in Call Down The Hawk is Carmen and Parsifal. These two characters are bland, boring, and just flat-out unnecessary. They are so disconnected from the rest of the action, that this book would have been a much tighter, powerful and compelling read, had the Farooq-Lane sections just been omitted entirely.A word to the wise, if your going to create a spin-off series, and not bring back beloved characters, at least make sure the new characters you introduce are just as riveting. Sadly, Carmen and Parsifal are not those characters. They are a misfire on every level. The Moderators and Visionary stories could have been told, but in small doses. Instead, it gets dragged out and the pacing of the novel is greatly damaged as a result. Worst of all, is that their storyline is made-up of nothing, but rambling filler, including Parsifal hiding in the bathroom, and than pining for and than shunning Bienenstich.I don’t understand how this was created. Parsifal has got to be the most useless character I’ve ever read. He serves no purpose, other than to annoy Carmen. His one vision that proves useful, only serves to lead her to another Visionary. And than he dies.Which brings me to Liliana. Another new character we don’t care about, who spends most of the time wandering around, interacting with more characters we don’t care about. If the intent was to pair Carmen and Liliana all along, what was the purpose of her and Parsifal at the beginning? This whole storyline feels completely and utterly pointless.One of the frustrations, while slogging through their chapters, was that so many characters in this novel are struggling with their identity, Declan, Adam, Matthew, Jordan, that I kept thinking how rich and rewarding would it have been to see Gansey, whom at the end of The Raven King, was brought back to life, by Cabeswater, a different person. We are never told how he changed, only that he was re-shaped into something new. If your going to have Carmen/Parsifal, who are essentially, an island story anyway, why not instead show Gansey and Blue on their road trip, as he slowly discovers what about him is different. He just returned from the dead a second time, remade by magic and his friend’s love, he’s a new Gansey, a different Gansey. And since so much of this story is about copies and originals, it seems he’d fit right in. Unfortunately, we only get to see him and Blue in texts, while Carmen/Parsifal/Liliana, and their backstories, clogged-up a third of the novel.The biggest disappointment was Ronan’s story, which is ironic, since this new trilogy is supposed to be about him. Ronan has no arc in this book, unless you count his constant moping. He basically just stumbles from one situation into another. First, Harvard, then The Fairy Market, then Hennessy’s house. That does not a cohesive arc make. I suppose, his decision at the end, that he only wants to dream originals and not copies is meant to be something, but it is not enough for me. And his ponderous conversations with Bryde didn’t help. After the sixth one, I wanted to yell....ENOUGH ALREADY! The magic of The Raven Cycle was the interaction between the characters, and I felt the Ronan/Bryde story paled in comparison. Ronan is someone who lost his father, has a strained relationship with his older brother. If the intent of Bryde was to create a father/son dynamic, it failed miserably, because Bryde is not a character, he is just a voice, an empty vessel. Compare this to the introduction of The Gray Man in The Dream Thieves, another new character, another force-to-be-reckoned with, but unlike Bryde, he is fully fleshed-out. We slowly begin to see the layers peeled back from him, revealing his history and personality, and he, through baby steps, is integrated with the other characters, that by the end, he is a part of the fabric of the story. I could not become attached to the Ronan/Bryde relationship, because one of them does not exist, he is a blank slate.Hennessy’s backstory was so convoluted and her relationship with her copies so emotionally vapid, that I could not get attached to them either. I feel like this could have been a very powerful story, one about family and individuality, but it was executed all wrong. If we had not had to endure the Farooq-Lane sections, I feel more time could have been spent developing Hennessy’s copies, giving them their own distinct personalities. Instead, we are told, one is the angry one, one is the practical one, because those are the parts of Hennessy that manifested in them. That’s the cheap and easy way out. I was sorely disappointed. If this dynamic had been developed in the way the women of Fox Way were (Maura, Calla, Blue, Orla, and Persephone), and we had seen the powerful bonds of sisterhood, when the brutal massacre occurs at the end. It would have been devastating. Instead, I felt nothing.When you think about it, the whole novel builds to a giant pile of nothing.We are told at the beginning, that Bryde is a dreamer, 469 pages later, we still don’t know who he is, where he comes from, or what he wants.We are told at the beginning, that the world is going to burn, 469 pages later, we still don’t know why, when, or who is going to cause it.We learn Declan is not Aurora’s son, but we never see him meet the woman in the painting, who is his birth mother.We are...quite belatedly, introduced to a abstract concept called The Lace, that’s supposed to be terrifying, but we don’t know what the hell it is.We never know the source of the nightwash, or why it plagues the dreamers. Why is it that Niall could travel all over the world, but Ronan can’t even leave home?Instead, we are force-fed meaningless scenes, with more new characters we don’t give a damn about, including the backstories of every character Liliana bumps into and kills, and Adam playing cards with The Crying Club.It’s stated that Ronan and Adam talk on the phone every night. Yet, when Ronan visits him at Harvard the next day, he doesn’t recognize his voice, because Adam has now hidden his accent. What’s going on here? Is Adam using a fake accent at school all day, and his real one, at night with Ronan? Even if that’s the case, why would Adam put on the charade in front of Ronan, when they’re reunited on the walkway? IT MAKES NO SENSE!Also, why didn’t Ronan consult with the women of Fox Way, when Bryde first began speaking to him, in order to discover who he was, and whether or not he should trust him? Or better yet, why didn’t he take Hennessy to have a session with them, in order to discover what The Lace was, and why it was tormenting her? It seems Calla’s psychometry would really have come in handy here. Instead, he just fumbled around in the dark, grasping for answers. Stiefvater’s insistence that this new trilogy be it’s own thing, leads to huge gaps in logic for some of the characters, and a total insult of intelligence to the reader...and it’s a shame.At the end, we are given no answers, no resolutions, and no payoffs for what we just read. Instead, everyone jumps on a hoverboard, with shimmering swords, and goes over a waterfall. Talk about anti-climatic.Now for the good stuff:Honestly, Declan and Jordan were the saving grace of this novel. Their story was fresh and fascinating. Jordan, a dream, living her whole life as someone else, slowly coming into her own, and Declan who has been static for so long, slowly coming alive. Their scenes together were a joy to read, and I can’t wait to see what happens next. I’m also intrigued by Declan’s backstory and his relationship with his birth mother and how The New Fenian fits into the mix. His and Declan’s hug was heartbreaking. The Fairy Market scenes and the haunting image and power of The Dark Lady were magical to behold and brought this new series the closest I felt it got to recapturing the wonder of The Raven Cycle.Ronan and Adam’s scenes were precious. I wish there had been more of them. At least with Adam, Ronan felt alive and animatedMatthew’s discovery of what he is...was a gut-punch. I eagerly await his journey of forming his own identity.This was supposed to be a story about the Lynch brothers and when the novel focuses on them, it works. When it doesn’t, it falters.Speaking of family, the idea that Gansey and Blue would learn Adam is missing and Ronan and his brothers are being hunted by a group of government backed assassins, and not jump on a plane to help them, is insulting. I heard Maggie Stiefvater say she doesn’t want to write The Raven Cycle again, no one is asking her to write The Raven Cycle again, but as I said before, these stories are connected, and out of respect for the characters and the readers, when you write four books about friends who are willing to die for each other, who bring one of their own back from the dead, to get a phone call, like the one they got from Ronan and have them not appear in the rest of the trilogy is pathetic. What are they going to do, go sight-seeing in Oregon, while Ronan is being hunted, and Adam has vanished into the ether? THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL, THEY WOULD STAY AWAY!At the end of The Raven Boys, I was emotionally invested in everything. Gansey’s fate, Blue’s kiss, Adam’s deal with Cabeswater, Ronan’s dreams, Noah’s existence.At the end of Call Down The Hawk, I’m at a crossroads, caring about certain things and not others. The things I look forward to seeing unfold...Ronan/Adam, Declan/Jordan, Matthew, the twisted Lynch family history. The things I don’t care about...Carmen/Liliana, The Moderators, The Visionairies, The Crying Club, Bryde, The Lace, The end of the freaking world. I just hope in the next installment...the magic returns.