Books Like The Raven Boys

Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Boys is one of the strangest and most beautiful books in young adult fiction: Blue Sargent, the only non-psychic in a family of psychics, is told from birth that she will kill her true love with a kiss. And then, on the night of St. Mark’s Eve, she sees a ghost - a boy named Gansey, walking the road of the dead - and the psychic tells her he is not dead yet: he is one of the Raven Boys, the students of the local private school, and if she kisses him, he will die.

The book is about Blue and the four Raven Boys - Gansey, Adam, Ronan, and Noah - and their search for the corpse of Glendower, a legendary Welsh king buried somewhere in the Virginia mountains, whose awakening will grant a favor. It is a book about psychics and ley lines, about friendship and class, about boys who are searching for something and the girl who is part of the prophecy. If you have finished it and want more, here is where to go next.

If You Loved the Psychics: The Gift of Seeing#

The heart of the Raven Cycle is its psychics - Blue’s family, with their cards and their visions and their rules. These books are about the gift of seeing.

The Raven Cycle (Maggie Stiefvater)#

The essential companion is the series itself: The Dream Thieves, Blue Lily, Lily Blue, and The Raven King follow Blue and the boys through the search for Glendower, and the series, taken as a whole, is one of the great achievements of young adult fiction. The first book is the setup - the prophecy, the search, the boys - and the later books deliver the dreams, the magic, and the revelation of what the search was really for.

The Scorpio Races (Maggie Stiefvater)#

Stiefvater’s other great novel: a book about water horses, island life, and a love story that grows from danger. It shares the Raven Cycle’s gorgeous prose, its mythic underpinnings, and its conviction that the old stories are alive.

The Prophecy of the Stones (Flavia Bujor)#

A fantasy about three girls, three stones, and a prophecy that binds them: it shares the Raven Cycle’s interest in prophecy and its conviction that the future is written - and that the writing is not the whole story.

If You Loved the Search: Quests for the Impossible#

The engine of the Raven Cycle is the search: Gansey’s obsession with Glendower, the dead king whose awakening will grant a favor. These books are about quests of the same kind.

The Raven Boys, and the King in the Mountain#

The book’s great premise is the search for Glendower - a Welsh king buried in the Virginia mountains, asleep until someone wakes him. The search is the book’s engine and its metaphor: the boys are all searching for something - Gansey for the king, Adam for a life of his own, Ronan for meaning, Noah for peace - and the mountain is where their searches converge. The book is about what we are looking for when we think we are looking for a king.

The Hobbit (J. R. R. Tolkien)#

The essential quest: Bilbo Baggins, a comfortable hobbit, is swept into an adventure across Middle-earth. It shares the Raven Cycle’s structure - an unlikely hero, a journey, a transformation - in a warmer register.

The Name of the Wind (Patrick Rothfuss)#

Kvothe’s story is a search of a different kind: a legend told by the man who lived it, and the mystery of what happened to him. It shares the Raven Cycle’s interest in quests and its conviction that the search is the story.

If You Loved the Found Family: The Boys and the Girl#

The heart of the Raven Cycle is its group: Blue and the four Raven Boys, bound together by the search, becoming a family of a kind. These books are about found families of the same sort.

The Raven Boys, and the Group That Becomes a Family#

The book’s deepest subject is friendship: five very different people - a poor boy, a rich boy, a dreamer, a ghost, and a girl from a family of psychics - thrown together by a quest, becoming the people who would die for each other. The book is about what makes a family: not blood, but the choice to belong to each other. The group is the book’s great achievement, and it is why the series has such devoted readers: you want to live inside this group.

Six of Crows (Leigh Bardugo)#

Kaz Brekker assembles a crew of outcasts for an impossible heist, and the book is about the bonds that form between them. It shares the Raven Cycle’s found-family structure and its conviction that the crew is the story.

The House in the Cerulean Sea (T. J. Klune)#

An orphanage full of extraordinary children, and the caseworker who finds a family there: Klune’s book is the coziest possible version of the found-family story, and it shares the Raven Cycle’s conviction that the strange and the different belong together.

If You Loved the Class Divide: Rich Boys and Poor Boys#

One of the Raven Cycle’s quiet strengths is its attention to class: Adam Parrish, the scholarship boy from the trailer park, and Gansey, the rich boy who has everything and wants the impossible. These books are about the same divide.

The Raven Boys, and the Price of Wanting#

Adam is the book’s most complicated character: a boy who is brilliant and proud, who works three jobs, who refuses the help he desperately needs, who is being broken by the cost of wanting a better life. The book is about class in the most literal sense - what it costs to rise, what it costs to stay, the ways money shapes even the people who refuse to be shaped by it. It is a rare thing in fantasy, and it is one of the reasons the series is so beloved.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Benjamin Alire Sáenz)#

Two boys from different worlds - Aristotle, angry and poor; Dante, confident and middle-class - become friends and slowly discover what they mean to each other. It shares the Raven Cycle’s attention to class and its conviction that the friendship that crosses the divide is the deepest kind.

The Goldfinch (Donna Tartt)#

A very different book, but one that shares the Raven Cycle’s interest in class and its sense of the ways money and loss shape a life. It is darker and longer, but readers who loved Adam’s story will recognize the register.

If You Loved the Magic: Dreams and Ley Lines#

The Raven Cycle’s magic is strange and specific: ley lines, energy running through the land, and dreams that are more than dreams - Ronan’s dreams, which bring things into the world. These books have magic of the same kind.

The Raven Cycle, and the Magic of the Land#

The book’s magic is rooted in place: the ley lines running through the Virginia mountains, the energy that the psychics can feel, the sense that the land itself is alive with power. The magic is not a system with rules - it is stranger than that, more mythic, closer to the feeling that the world is full of things we cannot explain. That is the book’s great gift: it restores the sense of wonder to magic.

The Starless Sea (Erin Morgenstern)#

A book about a secret underground library, doors, and stories: it shares the Raven Cycle’s dreamlike magic and its conviction that the world is stranger than we know.

The Night Circus (Erin Morgenstern)#

A circus that appears without warning, and a duel between two young magicians: it shares the Raven Cycle’s atmosphere and its sense of magic as something beautiful and dangerous.

If You Loved the Prophecy: The Future That Cannot Be Escaped#

The Raven Cycle is driven by prophecy - Blue’s curse, the psychic’s warnings, the sense that the future is written. These books are about prophecies of the same kind.

The Raven Boys, and the Prophecy of the Kiss#

The book’s engine is Blue’s curse: she will kill her true love with a kiss. The prophecy hangs over the whole series - every kiss, every moment of closeness, charged with the knowledge of what it might cost. The book is about living inside a prophecy: the ways it shapes you, the ways you fight it, the terrible possibility that it is true. It is the chosen-one story inverted: the girl whose destiny is not greatness but grief.

The Golden Compass (Philip Pullman)#

Lyra is the subject of a prophecy - a girl who will change the world - and the book is about her discovery of what that means. It shares the Raven Cycle’s prophecy structure and its question: does destiny free us or trap us?

The Gilded Ones (Namina Forna)#

Deka’s story is driven by prophecy and destiny, and the book is about her discovery of what she actually is. It shares the Raven Cycle’s prophecy structure, in a darker register.

If You Loved the Prose: Language as Magic#

Stiefvater is one of the great stylists of young adult fiction, and the Raven Cycle is written in prose you want to live inside. These books share her gift.

The Raven Boys, and the Sentences You Keep#

The book is full of sentences you will want to underline - strange, beautiful, and exactly right. Stiefvater writes with a control that makes the mythic feel real and the real feel mythic, and the book’s voice is one of its great pleasures. The series rewards re-reading for the prose alone.

The Scorpio Races (Maggie Stiefvater)#

Stiefvater’s other great novel shares the Raven Cycle’s prose and its mythic sensibility. If the Raven Boys made you want to live in her sentences, the Scorpio Races is the essential next read.

The Night Circus (Erin Morgenstern)#

Morgenstern’s prose shares Stiefvater’s lushness and her conviction that atmosphere is plot. The two writers are the great stylists of modern fantasy, and readers of one will adore the other.

Building Your Own Search: A Reading Order#

Here is a suggested path that moves from the closest match outward:

• Start with The Dream Thieves to continue the Raven Cycle.
• Move to Blue Lily, Lily Blue and The Raven King to complete it.
• Try The Scorpio Races for Stiefvater’s other great novel.
• Pick up Six of Crows for the found family with a heist.
• End with The Starless Sea when you want the dreamlike magic.

For more books with this kind of depth, our family-friendly clean historical fiction list gathers substantial, wholesome reads, and our meaningful clean mystery books list helps you find stories with real puzzles and real stakes. The stories section of our site is full of guides like this one, so there is always another king to find.

The Boys Who Looked for a King#

The Raven Boys endures because it is a book about searching - about the boys who look for a dead king in the Virginia mountains, and the girl who is part of the prophecy that might destroy them. It is a book about psychics and ley lines, about class and friendship, about the strange and the beautiful, and it is written with a control that makes the myth feel real. The books on this list are searches like that - quests for the impossible, families made of choice, magic that lives in the land. The road to the mountain is open. The boys are waiting. And the king - whoever he is - is still asleep. But the search, the book insists, is not really about the king at all: it is about what the boys are looking for when they think they are looking for him, and about the girl who is part of the prophecy that might destroy them all. Follow the ley lines, listen for the ravens, and let the strange and beautiful pull you in.