Rereads #1: Call down the hawk

 Series: Dreamer trilogy 

Author: Maggie Stiefvater

Genre: Fantasy, Magical Realism

Original publication date: November 5, 2019

Book description: 

The dreamers walk among us . . . and so do the dreamed. Those who dream cannot stop dreaming – they can only try to control it. Those who are dreamed cannot have their own lives – they will sleep forever if their dreamers die.

And then there are those who are drawn to the dreamers. To use them. To trap them. To kill them before their dreams destroy us all.

Ronan Lynch is a dreamer. He can pull both curiosities and catastrophes out of his dreams and into his compromised reality.

Jordan Hennessy is a thief. The closer she comes to the dream object she is after, the more inextricably she becomes tied to it.

Carmen Farooq-Lane is a hunter. Her brother was a dreamer . . . and a killer. She has seen what dreaming can do to a person. And she has seen the damage that dreamers can do. But that is nothing compared to the destruction that is about to be unleashed

Thoughts:

So I have read and reviewed this before if you wish to have a look at that: https://readaholic-anonymous.blogspot.com/2019/12/call-down-hawk.html

In this case, I just saw it and I found that in these few months I have not changed much. MY "reviews" can be considered unhelpful, it's a post of my feelings while reading the book. I include nothing a review should include. Apologies about that. (Also this following will be very much filled with my opinion and feelings as well).

Moving on to the book itself.

The writing style is the same as in The Raven Cycle, we have hints of beautiful prose but not overdone. It is easy to get through read and a very easy to understand the story takes place in a very similar world as ours. It feels a bit faster pace as we keep making the world bigger and adding even more characters. The Dreamers and their abilities are still fairly new as nothing much was explained in the first series. 

The story picks up right after the Raven Cycle, a few months later. Adam is off to college, Harvard. Gansey and Blue are off traveling the world-saving one tree at a time while they decide on their next step. They are not very present except, mentioned in a few texts or calls.

There is no relationship drama, Ronan and Adam are a solid couple. I still find that very good. I had feared ( I had actually forgotten this fear before I read the book the first time) that there would be unnecessary teenage drama to split them up and instead of an adventure we would have a romance filled with miscommunication and nothing else. No, that was not it. We do have a different plot to follow.

There are dreamers out there. We start following a few different people Jordan Hennessy, another dreamer who each time she dreams she brings back a copy of herself. Something dark lurks in her dreams and she can't control it. There are six girls, who share her face and life, as she can't find anything else to do as she keeps bringing copies of herself back.  She has a dark past, a very shady present and her demise is fast coming. 

*A slight spoiler: She brings back a copy of herself and each time she does a flower appears in her neck. The moment she has room no more for a new tattoo she will die. This is the belief her copies have. They have a time limit, as soon as all of those spaces are covered Henessy will die. The whole group of girls fears that. As we know a dream cannot live if its dreamer is dead. 

On the other hand, Ronan is trying to control his dreaming. He discovered Nightwash. If he does not dream and bring something back after a while, a black substance starts to leak from his eyes, nose, ears... its a very bad vibe and he gets hurt. It could possibly kill you. He is getting weaker and weaker until the Nightwash forces him to pass out and dream. This is something it happens to other dreamers as well. Jordan, Ronan, others few that are mentioned but we do not focus on that many dreamers but it is a consequence that is true for all of them. 

Ronan faces personal issues when he is trying to move to the same city as Adam, he is in college and Ronan stayed behind in the Barns. But it proves to be hard to control. He visits Adam and in his night over, unfortunately, he dreams and brings back something that trashes Adam's dorm room and gets him in trouble. Ronan is depressed, he is traped to stay behind on his farm where he can safely dream in secret.

During a trip, Ronan and Declan visit the Fairy Market where Ronan finds reference to another dreamer Bryde. He wants to go chasing after them. Declan wishes for his brother to not go searching for danger.

We see more sibling relationship between the Lunch brothers. Also a few more mysteries and discoveries about their families. We find:

-A woman who shares a face with Aurora.

-She is part of Boudicca, a woman-focused organization that could be dangerous.

-A young version of their father Neil Lynch comes up. He is a copy, a dream copy. But who is the dreamer?

-Declan lives with too many secrets, he should be a bit more open with his siblings.

The second part of the story is following a group of people Visionaries and moderators. A world organization, it's like a secret agency vibe. But they do not mention any government, they have members of different countries traveling around the world looking for Zeds (dreamers). They know that somewhere in the future there will be a great fire that will destroy the world.  A dream fire that will be unstoppable. The solution? Find the dreamers around the world and kill them before they bring this destruction.

Visionaries are people who have the ability to have visions of the future, they change between their ages and when they do, a great deal of damage is suffered by the living being around them. Each vision contains great destruction, a Zed, or other visionaries. Using them they are able to locate the Zeds and kill them. Each time they kill one they hope to have visions about the end of the world change. So far they haven't had any luck with changing the future. 

Ronan, Hennessy, and Bryde are dragged into it. They are targets the Moderators wish to destroy. They know nothing about them other than the fact that they are dreamers. All must be eliminated because they can't stop dreaming or they die. 

This is a great start of a series, it ends with the three dreamers taking on an impossible quest, they will defeat the entity living in the dreamland that is demanding to be released and stop the Moderators before they destroy all dreamers out there. I loved this, I was unsure if to give it 4 or 5 stars again. But do enjoy the story and fell for the characters. Surprisingly, we spend enough time with a few on each side that I even care for a few moderators, one specific. I am really looking forward to the second book. I will try to get it as soon as it comes out.

This is is for me guys. I hope this gives you a bit more insight and helps you decide to pick this book up. I really recommend it for Fantasy beginners and especially for the people who loved the Raven Cycle. This takes place after the initial series so if you have not read it it will really not hinder your reading or understanding. Nothing is essential from that series but you will probably miss the love we already have for the characters. Very small knowledge is carried over and the few hints of the past are explained in short sentences in the book.

This series can be read even if you have not read the Raven Cycle. But I loved the other series so read it too. The pace is very different, both are very character-focused but overall the Raven cycle is very slow-paced, at least book one in the Dreamer trilogy feels like more action-packed, and more things are happening. 

Let me know if you have read this series or what other coming releases you are anticipating.

Stay safe, stay healthy!