This review originally posted at More Than Just Magic 
 The characters of the Raven Cycle series have come a long way since the first book. Starting with Ronan. I couldn't stand him in The Raven Boys. He was so smug and annoying and I kind of wanted to punch him. But now my feelings are more...complicated. He's still incredibly smug, but The Dream Thieves opens up a whole new side of him. He's not just your average bad boy, he's an extremely complicated and damaged individual and he makes this story so interesting. 
 And then there's Gansey. I have to admit I didn't fully understand the Gansey love in the first book. He was interesting and well written but I didn't love him. Now I do. He went from simply being interesting to making my heart melt a little more every scene he was in. And Noah. Although instead of heart melting, it was heart breaking. Now that we know the truth about him we see how much he's missing and how hard it is for him. I wish he was real. For his sake and us heart broken readers. 
 In The Raven Boys the magic felt a lot more subtle. Tarot cards and scrying and so forth. It was though everything in their lives was fairly "normal" with a strong magic core running through it. In The Dream Thieves, however, the magic is more front and centre and I wasn't entirely prepared for it to take the main stage so soon - I thought Stiefvater would be introducing things more gradually as the series progressed. This book was a lot more dangerous and a lot more dark than I thought it would be but on the other hand it was also a lot more exciting and action packed. 
 Great characters, magic, danger, excitement - this all speaks to Stiefvater's writing. As I said in my review of The Raven Boys, she gets better with every book. The Dream Thieves is poetry in prose. It's deep, emotional and humorous. It's everything that good writing should be. A friend of mine pointed out that reading a book like The Dream Thieves helps us become better writers. I also think books like this make us better readers. They make us think, they let our imagination soar and they demonstrate how a story can change us. 
 The Dream Theives is enchanting. I can think of no other word that best describes this series. It has packed such an emotional punch in only two books, I can only imagine what three and four have in store.