Ravensong (Green Creek, 2)

Excellent tome 2, narré cette fois par Gordo, l'un des personnages les plus attachants du clan Bennett. La première partie du livre (un bon quart) reprend les événements du tome 1, vus par Gordo. On apprend de petites choses et c'est plutôt sympa, mais pas révolutionnaire. Puis l'histoire progresse vraiment, et là accrochez-vous! Car il y a de l'action, du suspense, de l'émotion, des révélations... et des ennemis à abattre. C'est toujours aussi bien écrit et efficace. Superbement réussi.

Honestamente não é o melhor livro da série. É muito importante ( necessário ) para entendermos o que acontece nos próximos livros mas pra mim não foi o que eu esperava. Eu amei o Gordo e o Mark no primeiro livro e fiquei MUITO curiosa pra saber a história deles e como eles voltariam um pro outro. Mas começou a ser chato depois de um tempo, os dois super teimosos ( sendo o Gordo mais ) e apenas quase no final temos um cedendo ao outro. Eu realmente gostei no livro mas fiquei decepcionada. Acho que tinha muito expectativa ou sei lá. Mas acho essencial ler ele porque há muitos fatos importantes que vão influenciar o resto da historia.

This was intoxicating, stressful, heartwarming, hopeful, and healing. This one had a lot more action than the first book, plenty of bloodshed, and enough angst to make even teenagers feel uncomfortable. It wasn't an easy read, but it was worth it.

“Are you a leader, or do you seek nothing but vengeance? You can’t have both.” Good grief, TJ Klune doesn’t do anything by halves. He seems to write exponentially. When “Wolfsong” appeared two years ago, it was Klune’s experiment in werewolf fiction – a genre at which he had scoffed all along. But he jumped in with both feet and dragged the rest of us along for the ride. And what a ride. Reading “Ravensong” is somewhat like being pushed off a bluff into a rushing river: you are immediately caught up in the current, coming up for air, sputtering and disoriented. And then you simply let go, and Klune’s writing sets its hooks in you but good. I had a little trouble engaging at first, because I’m a reader who likes instant clarity. Eventually, however, the story got inside my head, and I synced up with Klune’s signature rhythmic writing and intensely studied characters. In the end, I stayed up well past my bedtime to get to the end. “Ravensong,” simply stated, is the sequel to “Wolfsong,” focused once again on the Bennett wolfpack in the tiny isolated hill town of Green Creek, Oregon. This time Klune’s micro-epic narrative focuses on Gordo Livingstone, son of the Bennett wolfpack’s witch. As a child, Gordo is dragged unwillingly into the political and metaphysical complexities of the Bennett family. Gordo’s closest tie to the pack is Ox Mathieson, the unlikely co-alpha and mate to young Joe Bennett. Like many characters in Klune’s emotionally intense novels, Gordo is traumatized early, and spends the rest of the story trying to cope with the aftermath of what is visited upon him as a child. “We all had monsters in our dreams. Some of us had just lived with them longer.” TJ Klune treasures his characters, collectively and individually. The byzantine twistings of his imagination find plenty of fertile soil in the werewolf genre. The plot arc and the core premise of the book are firmly rooted in contemporary wolf/shifter fiction genre, but Klune’s inimitable style makes these stories unlike any others. The entire plot is very tightly focused on the wolves, and yet the echoes of national and even global politics place it very much in this exact moment of our collective zeitgeist. It is, however, to Mark Bennett that Gordo Livingstone is drawn. At the center of the narrative is the lifelong love/hate relationship these two men have from childhood to the beginning of middle age. Klune loves the frustration of love unfulfilled, of love betrayed and lost. Ultimately, he is playing for an explosive romantic turnaround, but the road is difficult and dangerous. Klune knows how to push this kind of emotional manipulation to the very edge. If it doesn’t put you off (and Klune is not for everyone) it will mesmerize you. “But the funny thing about hate is the razor-thin line that separates it from something else entir...

When I saw that this book was from Gordo's perspective and not Ox's, I was (admittedly) a little disappointed. I didn't realize each of the four books in this series have a different POV, so I was expecting more Ox. And it's not that I disliked Gordo, but I found myself somewhat frustrated by him in book 1. That being said, getting his perspective in Ravensong was enlightening. He's still stubborn and you just want to shake him at times, but man, oh man, do I understand him better. Gordo didn't have it easy. We get hints of it in the first book, but no where near the full story, and it -hurts-. The angst is high is this one. The entire first third of the book is split between recapping the present from Gordo's perspective (including up to where the first book ended) and also Gordo's childhood. I'm not always a fan of heavily-flashbacked scenes, but in this, it worked phenomenally. And I think a big part of that is because of how TJ Klune wrote it. Especially as we near "current time", everything comes to a head, back and forth and back and forth between times, quicker and quicker. It's brilliant. And it made me -feel-, god did it make me feel for Gordo. Once the recapping reaches that bridge point, we continue on with our heroes journey. New adversaries arise, some old ones resurface, and the whole gang is along for the ride. Mark, of course, is heavily featured. I liked his character, but I will say, I didn't get as firm of a grasp of him as I did for Joe (Ox's counterpart in book 1). I don't think that detracted from the book, as it wasn't even something I thought about until writing this review, but Gordo was definitely the defining character here. The whole lovable gang from book 1 returns, there are some great funny moments yet again, and we do get even greater character development because of Gordo's flashbacks. We also get glimpses into what's going to happen for the older two Bennett brothers in the future, which I'm excited for. I don't quite know what else to say about this one. The action was great. The development of plot was great. And, in fact, I may have even enjoyed the plot more than the first. There are some interesting going-ons with the omegas, and even a twist. Who doesn't love a twist? But Ravensong, to me, was all about emotion. About Gordo's hurt, which wasn't always easy to read. Brutal at times, even. It was about grief and learning to let go. It's about saying enough. Nevermore. And it made me appreciate Gordo more, and that fact that book 2 was his. I told myself I'd spread out these books to make them last, but I don't see that happening anymore. I'm too invested in Green Creek, in this unique story of werewolves and magic and packpackpack, and I need to see where Klune takes us.