The Ravenhood Series
By Kate Stewart
Reviewed by Jessica Colleran
This series has been on my TBR (to be read) list for quite a while. I'm sure many of you have seen it floating around Tik Tok and social media, and I finally decided to check out the hype. I'll be honest, I was conflicted about this series. I did read all three books and found myself liking the series and the characters less and less with each installment. There are smutty elements found throughout each book, but I was surprised to find this was not the main focus as I had originally thought. I am left wondering where all the major hype and recommendations come from after reading this trilogy, but to each their own!
Summary
I will try and summarize as best I can since this is a lengthy series. All three books center around a young woman named, Cecelia Horner, and her relationship with several men that all belong to The Ravenhood Brotherhood. Cecelia is living with her father (whom she has no relationship with) for one year in the first book (The Flock) in order to be able to accept her inheritance from him. During this year in Triple Falls she meets two men: Sean and Dominic. Over time, she falls in love with both men, and they seem to be completely open to her being in a relationship with the both of them. Cecelia realizes that these two men are part of a very serious "gang": The Ravenhood. Every member of the group is branded with wings on their back, and once you are a member, you do anything for other members and to preserve the secrecy of The Ravenhood. Another main character is introduced in the second book, Tobias. Once he is introduced, Cecelia begins to form a relationship with him as well. Since Sean and Dominic are out of the country, and Cecelia thinks she will never see them again, she lets her guard down and begins to allow a romance with Tobias to occur. The years continue and the relationships between these four characters are put to the ultimate test. This is obviously a very broad summary as many events and many storylines are involved throughout this trilogy.
What I Liked/Didn't Like
This series was sometimes very difficult to follow. There were a lot of backstories that developed throughout the trilogy, and I felt that at times it was confusing for the reader to follow everything over such a long period of time (roughly 10-ish years from beginning to end). The characters were interesting and had depth to them but acted in very unrealistic ways to many situations. I did like the main reason as to why The Ravenhood formed (don't want to spoil it so I will leave this vague). I also liked the setting of Triple Falls, the town was described very well, as were all the hangouts of the characters. I just felt that the entire series fell flat for me if I take into consideration all three books.
Series Rating ⭐⭐⭐
Overall, I can say I liked the first book the best by far. In fact, if it were up to me, I would have condensed books 2 & 3 and lengthened book 1 so that it was just a standalone novel rather than a trilogy. The first book had so much potential and then as the series went on, things just got drawn out, confusing, and convoluted. Many of the relationships were very toxic in the story, which was not always fun to read about, and sometimes I was left scratching my head as to why Cecelia and Tobias continued to try and be together. This is one of those times where I don't understand all the praise and hype for these books on social media. While I enjoyed the first book, it's by far not the best trilogy I've ever read. It wasn't bad but rather pretty average, in my opinion.
Comments
Post a Comment