Book Reviews: The Ravenhood Duet by Kate Stewart (Excludes The Finish Line)

"If you're ever wondering what to do, that's what you do.

Whatever you fucking want, whenever you want, and you don't apologize for it, not ever."

I have been waiting to write this review. Kate Stewart's retelling of Robin Hood are some of the most talked about books in a few online reading forums I'm part of. It seems that everyone and their mother and their dog loves this series.

I was promised love. I was promised heartbreak. I was promised hope. I was promised angst. Did the Ravenhood deliver? Yes. It absolutely delivered, but not in the way I expected it to or the way I wanted.

While Flock gave me both rainy and sunny days to enjoy, Exodus gave me a never-ending winter storm that froze my heart into a cold, dead thing that nobody wants.

The Technical Stuff

Reading Format: Ebook

Genre: Adult Fiction

Content Rating: MA

NeuroCandy Scale: 🍬🍬🍬🍬🍬

Ratings:

Flock: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Exodus: ⭐

Duet total: ⭐⭐ 1/2

Official Summary of Flock from the Kate Stewart Website:

Can you keep a secret? ⁣ I grew up sick.⁣ ⁣ Let me clarify.⁣ ⁣ I grew up believing that real love stories include a martyr or demand great sacrifice to be worthy.⁣ ⁣ Because of that, I believed it, because I made myself believe it, and I bred the most masochistic of romantic hearts, which resulted in my illness.⁣ ⁣ When I lived this story, my own twisted fairy tale, it was unbeknownst to me at the time because I was young and naïve. I gave into temptation and fed the beating beast, which grew thirstier with every slash, every strike, every blow.⁣ ⁣ Triple Falls wasn’t at all what it seemed, nor were the men that swept me under their wing. But in order to keep them, I had to be in on their secrets.⁣ ⁣ Secrets that cost us everything to keep.⁣ ⁣ That’s the novelty of fiction versus reality. You can’t re-live your own love story, because by the time you’ve realized you’re living it, it’s over. At least that was the case for me and the men I trusted my foolish heart to.⁣ ⁣ Looking back, I’m convinced I willed my story into existence due to my illness.⁣ ⁣ And all were punished.

Review

First thing's first: I hate the official summaries of these books. They're so long and the format is clunky, which is why I only included the summary of Flock. They do very little in helping the reader understand what the story is about; the summary of the first book is just an excerpt from the prologue, which has a completely different voice than the rest of the book. The summary of the second book tries to line itself up with the summary of the first, which matches a bit more with the second book than the first but is still lacking.

These books have a fair amount of angst, but not as much as the summaries lead you to believe. Had these books not come highly recommended, I would not have picked them up based on the summaries alone.

Now, this is definitely one of those books that should be read with an open mind. In real life polyamory isn't my thing- I'm completely happy and satisfied with the one boyfriend. But, it works for other people and it works for Stewart's characters- and it was fascinating to read that perspective.

The heroine of the Ravenhood series, Cecelia, is a pretty flat character. I've seen plenty of 17-21 year old girls with daddy issues represented in fiction and not only was Cecelia no exception, she did nothing to stand out from the pool of tragic heroines who want to find the love that their fathers never gave them.

Cecelia is damaged. Cecelia hates her dad. Cecelia is hot. Cecelia gives people lip to make her character seem a bit spicier than those before her. The end.

If I haven't made it clear, Cecelia is certainly not my favorite protagonist. So what made me like Flock so much?

Sean and Dominic. I love those boys.

"Now is now, later will eventually be now. Don't be a slave to the insanity of keeping time and keeping up. Now is the only thing you have control over, and even so, it's an illusion."

These two are foils of each other in the best way. Literally, Stewart gave Cecelia Sean on sunny days and Dominic on rainy days. Sean is the sun- outgoing, eager, and shining for others. Dominic is the rain- broody, closed off, and melancholic.

These two are polar opposites and I was rooting for them equally (though it took a bit more convincing to get me on Dominic's side). These two are as close as brothers and don't let their relationship be affected by a shared love interest.

The buildup in Flock is fantastic. It dives deep into the relationships between Sean and Cecelia and Dominic and Cecelia as separate dynamics as well as the dynamic between the three of them. My biggest complaint was how little of the relationships we actually got to see because there was so much buildup.

This is a book about a brotherhood and a young woman exploring her ideas of what relationships should be and what love should look like. It was well-paced and kept me hooked until the end.

I was disappointed in the ending of Flock, but I thought that it would all be solved in the second book. I was so wrong.

Note: The second part of this review (Exodus) will contain spoilers for Flock.

I have twenty-six notes in Exodus and most of them are negative. What was once a flawed young woman experimenting with her idea of love became a flawed young woman making a series of bad decisions (I think I've seen this film before... And I didn't like the ending). It was during this book that my view of Cecelia changed from "This character isn't necessarily terrible, just flat" to "I cannot stand this heroine."

The biggest problem that I had with this book is that it completely threw away a good chunk of what happened in the first book. Sean and Dominic were the entire reason I liked Flock and I only picked up Exodus hoping for a different outcome with their story.

Instead, it felt like I was reading a spinoff of Flock. Not only was my favorite part of Flock completely cut from Exodus, I could not stand the new character.

The dynamic between Tobias and Cecelia felt incredibly forced and unbelievable. Not a crumb of chemistry landed naturally between these characters. It was so easy to get on board with Sean and Dominic, but I finished Exodus despising Tobias as much as I had when he was introduced. I just could not understand how I was supposed to grow to like this character when he literally assaulted Cecelia just because he showed her some fireflies.

"My own heart toes the ledge, carefully peeking down at the endless stories below and weighing the risk before shaking its head at me."

I could not understand why Sean and Dominic weren't allowed to associate with Cecelia but Tobias was. Even upon finishing the book it made absolutely no sense, the only explanation I could find being that Tobias did it for no reason other than that he is simply the worst and a huge hypocrite.

I knew going into this book that things got complicated with Sean and Dominic, but for Stewart to edge me with their return just for them to come back for a total of, like, two chapters left me in a near-feral rage. What was the point of me reading Flock if that story didn't even play out? I spent this whole book waiting for them and that's all I get?

I was less than 60% into Exodus when I wanted to call it a DNF. I hated the way the story was playing out because of how much it disregarded Flock... and I hated Cecelia. She was completely selfish, made poor decisions, and was incredibly thoughtless and stupid with her actions. Also, she's needed therapy since she was born. By the 70% mark I knew there was no way I could root for her, but she's the character I was supposed to root for. The only reason I finished Exodus was because I don't review books without finishing them.

The only redeeming qualities of Exodus were Tyler, always supportive of his friends, and the backstory about Roman that provided a bit of redemption. Seriously, every time Tyler had a section of Cecelia's narrative I felt like I could breathe because he made my rage-reading dissipate.

I also won't lie, the second installment did have some great one-liners.

"Keep dreaming. Keep planning.

Dream a thousand dreams and then make a thousand things happen."

I would recommend Flock to anyone curious about diving into this series, especially if modern fairytale retellings are of interest. I can't say I understand why everyone seems to love Exodus so much because I was completely fed up about halfway through the book. I will not be reading The Finish Line.