"Time had no meaning. Days were irrelevant. They marked time with dreams." 
 So, this is the second installment in the Raven Cycle series and I was really excited about it, because I knew it mainly focuses on Ronan, and, well, I have a soft spot in my heart for him, as I do for every superficially-bad-but-deep-down-teddybear kind of boy in literature. I was not let down in that aspect, but some other elements of this book fell quite flat. 
 The Dream Thieves picks up where the first book ended, but by the end of it the plot made almost no progress at all. Just like The Raven Boys , this is a character-driven book. The characters are complicated and their personalities, fears and secrets unravel slowly but surely, their development gradual but inevitable. I like how the big things, the ones that define them and their actions, are hinted rather that thrown across the reader's face and although everyone seems to have a tendency for drama and overreacting, I couldn't but sympathise with them-except from Gansey. I know that everybody adores him, because he supposedly is so kind and clever and considerate, but I just couldn't see it in this book. I hated how he treated Adam (view spoiler)[,accusing him of waking the ley line against his wishes, as if everybody should always do as he tells them to, and then flirting with Blue behind his back; You don't flirt with your friends crushes, you just DON'T. At least I know that Adam is going to get over that soon. (hide spoiler)]. At least he's a good friend to Ronan. 
 At some point, though, reading about Ronan's anger, Adam's indignation and Gansey's self-loathing becomes tedious, when there is almost nothing else going on until the last 50 pages, where, admittedly, all hell breaks loose. 
 Maggie Stiefvater's prose is unique and intoxicating; it creates an aura of mystery and longing that totally befits a story about ancient kings, magical forests and materialized dreams. Her words, her descriptions are full of her character's emotions and I lost myself in them, feeling rather than reading . But this virtue is also the book's curse because at some points the writing becomes too flowery and the prose too purple. Stiefvater tries so hard to write something beautiful (which she usually achieves), that the result is almost laughable. 
 "Gansey's phone chirruped. He read the message before letting it drop next to the gearshift with a strangled cry. Abruptly melancholy, he lolled his head dismally against the seat. Adam gestured for Ronan to pick up the phone, but Ronan despised phones above almost every other object in the world. 
 So it sat there with its eyebrows raised, waiting." 
 I actually pictured a phone with furrowed eyebrows and angrily pressed lips, and that totally threw me off. 
 The Dream Thieves has its ups and downs. Some things seem exaggerated and random. The magic aspect especially is still not well explained and thought out, and although it isn't the most important part of the story, it plays a significant role, so it bothers me that it makes as little sense as it does. (view spoiler)[ For example, the extremely dangerous thing Adam had to do,in order to understand what Cabeswater was trying to say to him,was to look into a mirror and follow a drop of water or something like that, and then in order to fix the problem with the ley line he just had to move around some rocks? And how did Ronan and Kavinsky found themselves in the same place, while dreaming, only once, and not everytime, if they both dreamt about Cabeswater? (hide spoiler)] On the other hand, some scenes were so beautifully powerful that brought tears to my eyes, and I often cracked up with the witty dialogue. So, although I disagree with people who call this a masterpiece, I see what made them love it so much.