I finished the dream thieves yesterday for the first time, so I wanted to share my thoughts somewhere.

Overall I'm really enjoying this franchise! It was recommended to me by two of my best friends and I've been wanting to read it for some years and I'm very happy I picked it up! Mostly because I just had a very disappointing experience reading a YA book and I'm glad to see that the genre has such great and well-written stories like this one.

So well, regarding my thoughts on the book (Spoilers for it of course). I enjoyed it, though not as much as the first book, which I really loved. I think that has to do with the fact that I got really invested in the whole ley line and glendower investigation thing. And well, there is not much of it in this book and its mostly left out in place of characterization. Great characterization, by the way, but I found the plot in here to be much less engaging than in the first book. Still, Stiefvater's writing style keeps being great and I love how sensorial the scenes feel at times.

I consider this book to be a character study of Ronan mostly. It excells in that, adding lots of layers to a character that can feel flat and stereotypical if you only take his appereance from first book. I liked him there though, but I really enjoyed the added depth to his character in this book. I loved the scene in which he is preparing to fight the night horror in his room, that sequence was one of my favorites in the whole book (I was surprised by how scary those things were). I also liked how dreams are used to tell Ronan's own subconciouss surpressions and fears. Overall, he is not a character I unconditionally love, but I like him and his role in the story.

I loved Adam's POV in here, I think he may become my favorite character from the franchise if he keeps being this well-written in the following books (he is right now). His awful mental state it's so well transmitted that I couldn't avoid feeling bad for him every single time. It of course doesn't excuse how he treats Gansey or Blue in some scenes, but that adds depth to how he percieves his friendships and himself in general, and I find that to be extremely interesting and human. I loved his realization at the reading with Persephone and the scene with Cabeswater, I just hope he gets to a better place soon.

I was iffy with the initial characterization of the Gray Man, but I ended up liking him, and was kinda surprised to see his simpathetic side despite everything that happened to him. I definitely wasn't expecting him to have feelings for Maura but that was a nice addition to her character too. (I wonder what will happen with her later).

I didn't love Kavinsky but I guess he isn't written for being loved. Him acting as a foe to Ronan works, as he displays a lot of things Ronan feels too but he just surpresses them or canalizes them in different ways. He is ok, but as a foe character I enjoyed Whelk more.

Regarding Blue, I'm still not in love with her. She is fine, but it's true that her character does have some traits that make her fall in a very 'I'm not like other girls' trope from the early 2010s (considering this franchise is form that time it's not really that surprising, and I would like for her to at least have one girl friend her age). This is mostly shown in the whole boat scene with Orla which was kind of annoying to read at times. I did like Gansey's whole infatutation with her in there, but the whole shaming of Orla was kinda undeserved. Also, the scene of her kiss with Noah was weird, but not in a bad way, it's just that I never read a first kiss scene that was that sad and that made me feel sorrowful instead of hopeful. Very interesting inner conflict in there.

I liked how Gansey and Blue's relationship progressed slowly in here, specially the scene they have while watching the stars. Their gestures toward each other in the books are subtle, which I really like. I expect to be moved by their future development, so we'll see.

I hope that in the following books we delve deep into the things that the first book left open that weren't really treated in here. I still want to know what happened to Neeve and I hope that Maura's disappearance gives a bigger sense of urgency to the plot (a thing that I feel the whole story lacks at times). Even though I'm fairly excited and very satisfied with what the franchise has offered this far, I will probably read something else before going into blue lily, lily blue. Will probably share my thoughts here when I finish that.

So that's all, sorry for the long text.