The Raven Boys Book Summary and Study Guide

She goes up to the spirit and asks the spirit its name, the name it gives is Gansey. Blue realizes that the spirit is a Raven boy from Aglionby academy. She sees it on his shirt. Blue finds out that if you are a non-seer and you have seen your true love or you have killed the person. Blue is uneasy about knowing that because her mother and every other physic she has talked to has told her that she kills her true love by kissing him.

The next morning Blue doesn't get out of bed till after noon because the night before the spirits were drawing so much of her energy that she was wiped out. Meanwhile, Gansey is on his way to school when his car breaks down. So he calls Ronan and Adam, who are friends with him. They show up and Ronan puts full in Gansey's car, while Gansey hands Adam his recorder and Adam plays it.

On the tape Adam, Gansey, and Ronan can hear Gansey talking in what seems to be a far away voice to someone else who sounds very far off. They hear the voice asking what his name was and Gansey replying with his name, then another voice talking to the far off distance voice, but they can't make out what is being said.

         After the car has been filled with gas and started Adam climbs into the car with Gansey and gives him a physic's number so that Gansey can ask them what all of it is supposed to mean. In the mean time Gansey, Adam, and Ronan head back to Monmouth Manufacturing, that is where Ronan, Gansey, and Noah live. They are waiting for Ronan's brother Decline to show up with his girl friend. The boys live on the second floor of the building, normally were the offices and what not would be.

After Decline gets to Monmouth with his girlfriend, Decline's girlfriend meets Noah and Noah tells her that he has been dead of seven years. Which everything thinks is funny. After Decline leaves, the raven boys leave for Nino's restaurant.

Blue works at Nino's as a waitress and happens to be working when the raven boys walk in. As the boys sit down, Blue gets a call from her mother in the back and she goes to answer the call. Her mother tells her that Gansey has made an appointment with her and that she wants Blue to take the next day off. After Blue gets off the phone with her mother she gets a tap on her shoulder and finds one of the boys standing behind her. As she asks if he needs anything, he tells her that a friend of his likes her and he wanted to know if she could sit down for a bit with them and talk. She tells him that she is working, that she can't sit down and just hang out.

He tells her that he will pay whatever her shift cost and offers to pay it. Blue takes offense and tells him to bug off. While the friend that likes Blue is covering his face, as if he is ashamed of what his friend just said. As Blue's shift goes on, she doesn't have to deal with the raven boys, so Gansey and Adam are sitting at the booth talking about the Ley Lines that are in Henrietta, Virginia. Ley lines are supposed to be where the dead walk the earth and currently the Ley lines are asleep.

As Blue is getting off her shift she ends up seeing the Aglionby raven boy that she was told that likes her. She is confused by him because unlike the Aglionby Academy boys that she has seen, he doesn't seem like one of them. Every academy boy that ever comes into Nino's has a very expensive car and wears really well pressed sweaters of the academy. But this one has a not so pressed sweater, his has frays on it and blue wonders why he would wear a hand-me-down, if he goes to Aglionby academy. But she seems to want to keep talking to him, but she has to get home so she gives him her number, so that he can call her.

After he leaves with the paper that her number is on Donny, the manager from Nino's comes out and hands Blue a notebook that seems to be overflowing and he tells her that it seems like it would be hers because it would be something a physics daughter would be trying to find. When Blue open's the journal, Blue thinks that it might be Adam's because it seems that it would be something he would be looking for.

When Blue gets home she starts to read the journal and reads about a king who, if woken, can grant you anything you wish, but you have to find the end of the ley line. Meanwhile, Gansey ends up finding Ronan in an old church across from Monmouth and he is holding a Raven baby bird. Right then Gansey things that something is up because he does not believe in Coincidences.

The next day Gansey and Ronan are at their classes and they notice that Adam isn't in any classes. So after classes Gansey and Ronan go to Adam's and they find out that Adam has been beaten up by his father. Gansey offers him to come live with him, but Adam wants to be the one to choose where he goes and to make sure he did it himself.

After an hour of arguing with Adam Gansey realizes that he is late for his appointment, so he has Adam and Ronan come with him to it, even though he is late, he hopes that they will still take him. Meanwhile, at Blues house, Blue wonders why Adam hasn't called and why Gansey hasn't shown up for his appointment. As Blue is headed up to her room, there is a knock on the door and when the door is opened she sees the raven boys from the day before.

When the boys come in, Blue learns that the boy that offended her is actually Gansey himself and the boy that she talked to in the parking lot and given him her number is Adam. The other boy that is in the room she doesn't know, but she does know he makes her really uneasy. As Blue is looking at all three boys she notices that Gansey seems to be the one running the show, Ronan seems to make her really uneasy, and Adam has a really bad bruise on his face, that he didn't have the night before.

Blue is in the room when her mother does one draws for the boys. The one draws are were all three boys will grab one tarot card each and then Blue's mother, and Blue's two aunts will do reads on each card for the boys. The boys want to know why Blue is in the room and Blue's mother tells them that Blue makes things “louder” for them. Gansey asks what that means and Blue explains that physics can hear things from the people around them, but to be able to hear clearly they have Blue around because she amplifies the energy.

After the boys leave, Blue goes to her room and reads more of the journal and finds out that Henrietta, Virginia is right on the ley line itself. After a few nights of Blue waking up for really bad dreams, Blue decides to go out by he favorite beech tree in the back yard and notices that her aunt Neeve is sitting at the beech trees roots facing away from the house with a lit candle and a bowl of something and seems to be “gone”. When Blue approaches Neeve, starts to ask Blue questions but Blue realizes that the “thing” talking to her is not Neeve.

After Blue kicks over the candle and knocks over the contents in the bowl, Neeve seems to come back to herself. Blue starts asking Neeve what all of that was about and Neeve tells her that she was trying to connect with someone on the “corpse road” also known as the ley line. Blue is freaked out by it because who ever was coming through Neeve, knew who Blue was, Blue did not like that one bit.

The next day Blue decides to talk to Calla, who is also another physic who lives in her house with the others. When Calla gets home from work she is talking about Neeve to Calla and a car pulls up and gives Blue a banquet of flowers. Blue finds out that they are from Adam himself. Saying he was sorry that he hasn't called yet. Blue makes a plan with Calla to go through Neeve's room when Neeve has left the house for a few hours, just to see what they could figure out.

After Calla and Blue make their plans and Calla goes in the house Blue decides that in stead of listening to the future, she is going to start living it. A few hours later Adam decides to call Blue at her house and when the phone is answered by Persephone answered, Adam realizes that Persephone and Orla have made a bet about whether Adam would actually call Blue or not.

       When Blue gets to the phone, Blue has to tell Persephone and Orla to go away while she is on the phone. When they leave the room Blue and Adam start talking. Adam decides to ask Blue if she would like to go “exploring” and Blue asks if it has to do with the ley lines and Adam says yes and Blue decides to go with Adam the next day.

The next day Blue ends up sneaking out of the house, because he mother has told her to stay away from Gansey and the other raven boys, but Blue decides to go anyways. When Adam and Blue are walking to Monmouth, Blue gives Adam the journal and tells him that the unnamed church that she was at on St. Marks Eve is directly on the ley line its self. She shows Adam a roughly drawn map of how to get to unnamed church. As they get the Monmouth Blue realizes that they will be riding in a helicopter with Gansey, Helen, gansey's sister, and Ronan. Gansey tells Blue that pinpointing the ley line is easier from the sky because there is normally markers in the ground where the ley line is. Blue tells Gansey to head to the unnamed church and then to the mountains a little beyond that point. Blue tells Gansey that the unnamed church is right on the ley line.

Gansey realizes as Blue talks that the voice on the recorder is Blue's voice he hears asking what his name is. As they head over the top of the mountain they see a raven that is marked on top of the mountain and Gansey has Helen land the helicopter so that Gansey and Adam can take measurements and what not. While on the top of the mountain Blue confirms for everyone there that the lay line is also called the “Corpse road” Blue also tells everyone that if a body is taken from the lay line it is bad for the spirit. While they are exploring the top of the mountain Gansey and Adam look that their clocks and realize that time has seemed to completely stop. As they get to the end of a creek, Adam has walked off with Ronan and Blue and Gansey are looking around them, when they hear Adam, who sounds kind of in a panic.

When they get to Adam he tells them that the tree behind him is weird and that if they want to check it out for themselves they can just walk right in the opening of the tree. So Blue decides to try it and while she is in the tree with her eyes closed she has a “vision” type thing were she is standing in the unnamed church walls and is crying as Gansey tells her that he wants to kiss her and its ok. After Blue comes out of the tree, Gansey decides to give the tree a go and when he comes back out he is smiling and Blue asks him what he seen and he says Glandower, who is the king at the end of the lay line.

But Blue doesn't know what Adam saw because he will not tell anyone, he just keeps looking really ashamed and saying that he wouldn't do that to Gansey. After they leave the mountain they decide that they will meet up every day after classes for the rest of the week to figure out more information about the lay line and what they need to be doing. When they decide this their friend Noah decides to join them.

       On Friday Blue and the raven boys decide to go back to the mountain, but they go by car. When they get to the mountain and start walking they notice that they are walking through all the seasons. Spring, Fall, Winter. When they come across a rock that has writing on it in Ronan's writing that says the trees speak latin and you should talk to them. So they walk a little farther on and decide that maybe they should actually try talking to the trees.

So Ronan asks the trees to please speak to them and they respond, only Gansey and Noah are able to actually hear them. To everyone else the sound is the wind blowing in the trees. But the trees tell Gansey and Noah that they are happy to see Blue and Ronan again. Also tells them that if they head towards the season of summer they will find what they are looking for.

So as Blue and the raven boys head towards the season of summer on the mountain they see a red mustang. When Gansey looks up to talk to everyone he notices that Blue and Noah seem to have disappeared. Only to notice that Blue is walking back from the woods. Blue lets everyone know that Noah is getting sick in the woods. In the car they find a old hamburger that is partly eaten, and a dowsing rod. After they find the dowsing rod they decide to head back to Monmouth and Blue heads home.

When Sunday comes around Blue realizes that she has put off her other job of dog walking for the last week and needs to do that. So Blue decides to get ready to go to her dog walking job the phone rings. Blue answers the phone and Gansey is on the other line. Gansey knows that he can not be calling Blue, but decides to anyways. Gansey decides to ask Blue if she wants to go to the unnamed church and explore there and see what they can find. He tells her that Ronan is at church, Adam is at work, and Noah is Noah, so they won't be going, it will just be Blue and Gansey.

After an hour of Blue walking the dogs she meets up with Gansey at Monmouth and they head to the unnamed church. While there they decide to explore the woods behind the church and Gansey tells Blue about how he had died twice by bees. Then the EMF reader that they have with them just dies out of no were and as they are headed back to the unnamed church, they come across and grave of bones that still have the logo of Aglionby academy. So Gansey reaches under the bones and finds the wallet and opens it and finds out that the person the bones belong to are Noah's.

When Gansey and Blue get back to Monmouth Gansey starts to freak out, yelling for Noah. Then he tells Adam and Ronan that are there that they just got back from the police station because they found bones of an Aglionby academy student. Then he informs them that the bones belong to Noah. As Gansey tells Adam and Ronan Noah is right in front of them and tells them that it is true, he is dead.

Adam and Ronan do not understand how Noah can be dead when they can actually touch him and he feels real to them. But Noah points that they in all the years that he has lived with Gansey and the boys that every time they go to eat, he does not. How if anyone touches him he is always colder than anyone around.

A couple days goes by and no one sees Noah, but they know he is there because he keeps knocking things over and making sure they know he is there. But because his body has been removed from the lay line, they are no longer able to see him or touch him. The only way that anyone can see him or talk to him and hear him answer is if Blue is there. Noah can take Blue's energy and make himself seen and heard.

So when Blue comes over to check on Adam, Noah shows up and tells everyone who actually killed him. He tells them that he was friends with their latin teacher Mr. Whelk and seven years ago, while looking for the lay line himself Mr. Whelk killed Noah to try and wake up the lay line.

As Gansey is headed back from his mothers birthday celebration, his car breaks down. When a car pulls up behind him and Mr. Whelk gets out and points a gun at Gansey's head and demands his cell phone and the notebook about the lay line. While Gansey is getting the notebook out of the back of his car Gansey finds out that Mr. Whelk is the one that killed Noah and that Mr. Whelk wants to kill Gansey because if the police connect him to Noah's death, then Mr. Whelk loses everything he has now.

Meanwhile, when Ronan is taking Adam back to his place and they are talking before Adam gets out, Adam and Ronan see Adam's dad standing in the doorway of the trailer he lives in. Adam knows what is about to come. When Adam gets to the doorway Adam's dad goes off on him about his check he got from his job, saying that he lied to his mother about how much he made two weeks ago. When Adam says that he didn't lie his dad hits him So hard that his head hits the railing on the way down to the ground.

As Adam is on the ground his dad ends up hitting him some more, but Adam doesn't seem to notice because now he can not seem to hear or see, let alone get off the ground. But Adam does notice that Ronan is coming after his dad. Ronan ends up beating up his dad and the cops show up. Ronan is put in the back of the police car. Normally Adam would say that he didn't want to press charges on his dad because if he did his mother would never talk to him again and he would be kicked out of the house. But Adam tells the officer that he wants to press charges on his dad, so that Ronan does not get in trouble.

       When Gansey picks up Adam from the hospital Gansey learns that Adam will no longer be able to hear out of his left ear. Because his dad hit him so hard that he busted Adam's ear drum. Adam is upset because he did not want to have to move in with Gansey, even though Gansey has offered it several times before. But Adam moves in anyways. But as everyone sleeps that night Adam decides that he is going to wake the lay lines by himself, he isn't going wait. So Adam takes Gansey's car to Cabeswater to wake the lay line.

Gansey is woke up by the sound of Noah saying “Adam” and ends up waking up Ronan and realizing that his car is gone and so is Adam. Gansey knows that Adam is going to wake the lay line by himself and decides to go get Blue.

When Gansey and Ronan get to Blues house she is already outside, because he aunt is the one that told her the raven boys would be there to pick her up and her mother told her to go. So Blue and the two raven boys head to Cabeswater to find Adam.

When they get there Blue finds her aunt Neeve in the middle of a pentagram, with Mr, Whelk's standing over her. Adam is not far off with a gun in his hand facing Mr. Whelk, trying to talk Mr. Whelk into not killing Neeve because that will not wake up the lay line.

Neeve explains to Mr. Whelk that the only way to wake up the lay line is to have a sacrifice. Adam agrees to throw the gun in the bushes and as Mr. Whelk tries to go for the gun, Neeve seems to have disappeared in the middle of the pentagram. So to keep Mr. Whelk's from entering the center of the pentagram and Adam jumps in and says that he sacrifices himself. When he does the whole ground seems to be shaking like an earthquake. When Mr. Whelk shoots Adam, the earth stops shaking and Adam is still standing in the circle, but doesn't have a bullet hole in him, even though Mr. Whelk had a very good aim on him.

Then the earth starts to move again, but only by the stomping of large foot steps. Only to find out that it is the trees moving. The trees end up running over Mr. Whelk and he dies, while the trees are talking to Gansey. They tell Gansey that his king is not far off. Now that the lay line has been woken up by Adam.

A few days later as school ends Blue and the raven boys have a funeral for Noah and his family. They are burying his bones in the family plot. Blue knows that Noah is there but she can not see or hear him. So later that night Blue and the raven boys decide to to dig up Noah's bones and re-bury them where they originally were. Once they re-bury Noah's bones at the unnamed church he is standing right behind them and they all hug him and take him back to Monmouth, where he lives.

Best part of story, including ending: I like this story cause it goes to show, that even if one person is poor and the other is rich they can still be friends.

Best scene in story: My favorite scene would have to be when Blue and Gansey are inside the "vision" telling tree. I like it because to me it shows you your worst nightmares, but not the truth.

Opinion about the main character: I like the main character Blue because not only is she a physics daughter, but she knows when to live her own life, but at the same time, make sure she listens to her mothers advice about not kissing anyone because who knows who her true love could really be.