#Review: CALL DOWN THE HAWK by Maggie Stiefvater

CALL DOWN THE HAWK

Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Series: Dreamer Trilogy #1
Source: Purchased from Audible
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Publication Date: November 5, 2019
Overall Rating:
Diversity Rating:

Summary:
The dreamers walk among us . . . and so do the dreamed. Those who dream cannot stop dreaming – they can only try to control it. Those who are dreamed cannot have their own lives – they will sleep forever if their dreamers die.

And then there are those who are drawn to the dreamers. To use them. To trap them. To kill them before their dreams destroy us all.

Ronan Lynch is a dreamer. He can pull both curiosities and catastrophes out of his dreams and into his compromised reality.

Jordan Hennessy is a thief. The closer she comes to the dream object she is after, the more inextricably she becomes tied to it.

Carmen Farooq-Lane is a hunter. Her brother was a dreamer . . . and a killer. She has seen what dreaming can do to a person. And she has seen the damage that dreamers can do. But that is nothing compared to the destruction that is about to be unleashed. . . .

Purchase:

Amazon | Chapters | TBD

A Maggie Stiefvater book I didn't love? The shame! But I think I went into this with the wrong expectations (that it would be more like The Raven Cycle and less like... that), which definitely affected my enjoyment. I loved the narration and definitely will be continuing this on audio.

Ronan Lynch is everything you could ever want in a "hero." He definitely tries his best. But he didn't feel like the Ronan Lynch from The Raven Cycle. He was definitely the bones of that character, but not the meat of him. There were too many pieces that felt too different. It felt a little out of character for him in a lot of ways to have this story about him.

I wanted more scenes between him and Adam for sure. the ones we got weren't enough or satisfying. It felt like we were on the outskirts of seeing something magical between them but instead we got ... nothing. I feel like it wasn't enough, especially after how much they grew together during The Raven Cycle.

And usually I wouldn't compare spin-off series so much to their predecessor but this is explicitly supposed to be after the events of the initial series (and like maybe only months later???) and it feels like a completely different universe. Because in what world would Ronan only call Gansey for help on one thing when Gansey, and especially Blue, knows so much about magic. It felt like because this was a book about Ronan, we couldn't have him overshadowed by any of the other characters. But that never happened in the original story, so I don't see why that would happen now.

As for the other Lynch brothers - they were the other Lynch brothers, that's for sure. The other characters were really interesting and I look forward to seeing how it all plays out, especially with Jordan Hennessy. It felt more like a story that shouldn't have involved Ronan at all. Because the magic, the twists, and the story were all amazing, but the characters felt jammed in there rather than fully fitting into place.

TLDR: This was okay but nothing amazing. It didn't feel like Ronan's story so much as a story that had to feature Ronan in some way. I loved the plot and I love the characters but I didn't love them together. Something was missing but I don't know what. But as I said in one of my updates, it took me a book to get into The Raven Cycle so hopefully this is the same!