i would die for ronan lynch!!!

ok listen. this one is much slower than anything ive read by maggie before. it took me a whole ass 10 days to finish it, and yes, some of it is me picking it up almost exclusively at night after ive already taken my melatonin and im starting to lose focus, but also, its not like i havent stayed up reading since i started taking it, so we're both going to accept our blame here.

i wasnt expecting it to be slow, which was my main issue. i thought, oh, ronan my baby, and matthew my other baby, and also declan i guess, and also, adam and maybe opal. and then there was... so little ronan consideing this is a trilogy ABOUT ronan. and this simply threw me off.

heres the thing tho: shes a complex one. i didnt feel that there was extra information we didnt need, or anything along those lines. it was just dragy bc went into it thinking i was gonna meet old friends, and instead there were so many strangers. so many. and i did end up liking all of them, even the one thats kind of morally grey. it just took some time.

i liked jordan and hennessy as characters, i actually surprisingly really like declan question mark?? i would have loved more matthew because what a lovely being. i want more opal. more chainsaw. more adam, can you believe i miss this idiot?? i also want more gansey than three five second phone calls. i want someone to mention noah just once, so that we can all collectively remember that he existed and he mattered because im still salty about this.

so. i liked it. i like where the story is going. it just felt very first book in that it felt like it took years to get all the buildup, and then the climax was and also was not, and then it was over. so the morale is high for starting mister impossible tonight, even though it has that ugly ass name (maggie, really, what the hell. you've done better on your instagram posts. youve done better in the acknowledgements. give me a juicy title for the third one im begging you im on my knees)

some highlights:
- ronan and adam going "tamquam" "alter idem" instead of just saying i love you like normal people quite literally sent me to the brink of a crying fit
-maggie remains putting ordinary things in beautiful words in a way that makes me feel like life is worth living
- "does any part of you still look at the sky and hurt?" this wasnt directed at me but why did it feel like it was
- the bit where it talks about how ronan had loved gansey more than he loved himself. i know thats not a lot but. since we didnt once hear him say i love you straight up to him i just. i need a moment.
- also the way ronan just mISSES THE SHIT OUT OF HIM gansey,,, come back jesus christ
- please read this quote about the very first time ronan caught a glimpse of adam:

"ronan hadnt known anything about adam was then and, if possible, hed known even less about who himself was, but as they drove away from the boy with the bicycle, this was how it had begun: ronan leaning back against his seat and closing his eyes and sending up a single, inexplicable, desperate prayer to God:
please."

- like. did that not just break your entire heart
- ronan, who at this point wanted literally nothing
- he simply has me wrapped in his little finger
- i really really liked the bits of discourse on visual arts that maggie gave us here. she popped off. immaculate.
- theres a bit with a description of the feeling of eating a tomato right from the plant that, for someone whos grown and harvested tomatos every summer since they were a child, was incredibly delicious to read
- the idea of gansey asking ronan to keep his mint plant alive while hes away (and ronan, who has no clue of what the fuck to do with it, dreaming up a miniature sun for it) gives me butterflies
- "philantropy is a hobby for the emotionally rich"


all in all i love maggie stiefvater and ronan lynch with my whole entire heart