the raven scholar

hi again! (general life update: junior year SUCKS. i was being too enthusiastic about it. not even mentally or emotionally sucky, but grade-wise. i can't check grades right now but there might be 1 or 2 Cs. it's ok though, i have three weeks to fix it. hopefully)

so i've been reading a lot more this past year, and i don't know why. it could just be me getting bored of fanfiction (which i have been reading less of), or maybe i'm just changing more in a whole person sense. i don't know which is correct but either way, i have been missing out. there are so many bangers that i wish i read sooner. this book just came out this year so that doesn't really apply, but still.

one of my favorite genres is fantasy. i like how creative you can be in it, and i like how special the books are. however, that's just it. a lot of fantasy books aren't special. sometimes it feels like some of these are copy and pasted. i get why: the publishing industry mainly makes its money off of booktok now, and booktok likes specific things. i can't even be upset at that. however, it does get boring reading books that feel way too similar to each other. especially when you come across a book that is so special.

the raven scholar by antonia hodgson is a special book. so so special!!! i first heard of this book through newlynova (aka lexi) in her 24 books in 24 minutes video from a month ago (you should go watch it!!!). it struck me as special the second she started the video saying that everyone should read it. that made me really curious, and then i looked it up on goodreads, and the reviews were all glowing. it has one of the highest amount of 5 stars i've ever seen on the website. that's when i knew i had to pick it up. 

from here on out is spoilers!

i'm not gonna lie: i was not immediately hooked. up to about the end of chapter 3, i thought it was again more fantasy that i had read. female protagonist with long black hair with a father who attempted a coup, and now is going to rise the ranks against adversaries and become empress. i knew i was wrong the second i flipped to the last page of chapter 3. ohhhhh my god. yana the goat of haunting the narrative (she and dess are similar because they both haunt the narrative and both are sisters of one of the main characters, and also both are kind of erased from reality in a way). and then. the start of chapter 4??? the sudden shift in perspective???

this a good time to note one of my favorite things about this book: the unreliable narrator. i feel like this trope is so misunderstood because no one ever does it right!!! it's always in referring to the main character narrating, which while technically being unreliable, it never matters if it's a limited third person pov. only seeing the main character's thoughts is NOT the same as an unreliable narrator. anyway, this book actually knows how to make it cool! omniscient means to know everything, so having an omniscient narrator be a god? in fact, a group of people (ravens) knowing everything? god that's so cool. also completely unexpected! i'm glad i was not spoiled! (if you are still thinking about reading this i am sorry)

i actually want to talk more about the gods, and OH MY GOD THIS BOOK IS SO CREATIVE. (that's the main takeaway i want you to have from this). firstly: related to the last paragraph, more about the raven. when i first read chapter 4, i came to this realization: the reader is intended to be a raven. first of all, the main characteristics of the ravens is that they are scholarly. reading and writing. ...you are reading, which makes you a raven. (brief meta thing, but in the book there is a talking book that turns out to be a fragment of the raven, and the actual book of the raven scholar talks to the reader sometimes). secondly, you are also kind of a raven just by proxy, considering how the raven is the one showing you the world of orrun, and the people and stories in it. that's actually a completely different thing: we love mixed media in books! yesss give me unique ways of delivering a story omg. the stories inside of the story is so cool and i want more people to do it!

more about the gods of this book: there are eight, and each has a different characteristic that makes people identify with them. i'm not gonna get into all of them, but they are as you imagine: scholarly relate to the raven, the noble relate to the hound, the sly relate to the fox, etc. (in fact! here is an official quiz to see which god you would follow (i got the monkey!): quiz). this also sounds kind of generic, but really it does not feel like it! plus, every book has to rely on some tropes, right? this book does has some, but spins a lot of them! another thing that slightly relates to the mixed media praises earlier: each god has a different font they use when they talk. the raven has a slightly fancy font and the text becomes bold, and the dragon uses a font much fancier and a lot bigger font! sadly those are the only two that we see, so i hope we see more in the future (i guess the fox doesn't have one?? that kind of makes sense in lore i guess)

speaking of: the characters. this is what makes or breaks a book, i can put aside fancy prose and cool meta narratives, but at least the characters have to be good. and they are. at the beginning of the book, when it tries to make you think that yana is gonna be the main character, it's generic because she is 16. wow another teenager getting put into a ridiculous situation (imagine me getting put into the competition for the royal throne lol) but then it actually delivers a mature character! neema is everything i want in a main character: mature, funny, relatable, morally grey (?), but most of all, smart. and not smart in a way that everyone is in awe of and constantly caught off guard by. i mean a character that makes decisions that makes sense, at least to her (cause some decisions she makes are questionable). i love her and her charm. i also love cain, but i think everyone does. i did not see the fox thing coming. i find it funny that most of the characters thought he was either drunk or having a mental break when it came out. i wonder what it will do as vabras (quite a scary thought!) i also really like shal, BENNA (MY GOAT), tala, ruko (hesitantly), and all of the supporting cast. 

you can't talk about this book without talking about the plot twist. to be honest... i'm still trying to wrap my head around it. in a good way! i audibly gasped and shot up out of my bed upon reading that sentence. if you've read, you know the one (page 512...). i normally don't like plot twists this late into the book. i just finished reading blood over bright haven (like. 2.5 stars. idk how to feel) and the plot twist was the climax. so having this during the falling action was a bit weird, and would have been a criticism of mine, but honestly? placing it during this point of the book makes sense, and i don't think it would have fit anywhere else. the one thing i did after i read the ending was to go back to the first few chapters to make it make sense. and. oh my god. "The canopy was not for him. Bear warriors preferred to stand as they were trained--out in the open, exposed to the elements. The canopy was for his ceremonial clothes," OH REALLY? YEAH? ARE WE SURE ABOUT THAT? part of me wants to read the entire book again with the added context, so maybe i will.

there's a lot more i could add on about this book, like the dragons and nasthala, the trials themselves, how each contender changed over the course of the book, etc!!! but i won't because this is starting to hurt my wrist to write. anyway you should read the raven scholar and maybe we can discuss in long paragraphs like this.

a little criticism:

• are you seriously telling me that NO ONE aside from neema could tell that a coup was coming?? like yeah she's smart but there were other ravens on the island who were also quite smart.
• kind of don't like how unimportant gaida becomes by the end of this book. she seems so important and then kind of. is forgotten.
• i know this is gonna be a series but i kind of hope we get to see more of orrun in general