The Ravens by Kass Morgan and Danielle Paige

 

Welcome Back, Booklovers! I feel like it's been a long time since I've read a YA book like this. And it's a collaboration between two authors with Kass Morgan writing for Vivi and Danielle Paige writing for Scarlett.  I have read stories from both of them I read The 100 by Kass Morgan and a short story by Danielle Paige also about witches called The Actress. This one was very reminiscent to the witches in media during the 1990s and early 2000s.  I felt a lot of Charmed vibes when it came to this magic system.

If you haven't heard of The Ravens it's a story about sorority which is actually a secret coven. The story follows two sorority sisters Vivi Deveraux, a freshman and Scarlett Winters, a junior.  While Vivi has come to Westerly to escape her mother and find stability she stumbles upon something much greater when she discovers powers she never knew she possessed.  Scarlett comes from a legacy of witches having been raised her whole life to be a Raven like her mother and older sister. This year her biggest goal is to become the sorority president like her family members before her. 

The story is set on a Southern college campus but I'll be honest and say I didn't feel much Southern vibes and it could've been set elsewhere and felt more realistic. I get what they were going for setting it in Savannah because it's America's most haunted city but some things felt off to me. Outside of the few mentions of gothic architecture here and there it could've easily been set at a college up north or on the west coast and had the same vibes. Or it could've even been set at an elite boarding school since at times I got more high school than college vibes.

At times I felt like it was a little too politically correct. Granted I never went to college in The South but even here in the north there is a little racial tension between the different races at times. They really went out of their way to point out how diverse this predominantly white institution (PWI) is by always mentioning people around campus of different races. And in the sorority of itself you have Scarlett who is Black and who has family history rooted in Kappa Rho Nu. With Greek life being notoriously exclusive and other races having had to create their own sororities to have a place on campus it was a little hard to believe so many girls of different races were legacies. And in this book kind of side steps race while trying to show diversity. I understand not wanting to lean into oppression all the time but let's not pretend racism exists especially in an environment where it's known for being present.  The diversity felt very forced at times when we were learning the race of even characters who had no lines and only appeared in once scene.

The magic system is easy to understand. There are four types of witches which include Cups, Wands, Pentacles, and Swords. Each have their own element they are strongest working with. Swords are the air sign, Cups are the water sign, Pentacles are the earth sign, and Wands are the fire sign. Each sign is aligned with it's own deck of tarot cards which can be used to cast spells. Though the tarot cards are more of a pretty prop as when a witch has control of her powers she doesn't need to draw on them. 

Let's talk about what sparks a rivalry between Vivi and Scarlett. It's not just the rich girl/poor girl dynamic that causes tension. Scarlett being the queen of campus is dating the hottest guy from a popular fraternity. Of how I disliked Mason and his summer growth. Yes, people change as they get older and realize things they thought they cared about before really don't interest them at all anymore. He went away for one summer and started acting brand new. All of a sudden he's so above all the shallowness of everyone around him after his privileged summer of backpacking through Europe without a care in the world. So he returns to campus and moves in on the impressionable freshman girl and continues to pursue her despite knowing she's joining a sorority with the girl he's still dating. Not sure why either girl wanted him because he was rather bland. 

All in all The Ravens is  entertaining in a guilty pleasure/nostalgic kind of way with some red herrings thrown in that are easy to see past.  It starts off slow setting up the world around the girls but the mystery really kicks off in the last half and we get to see the girls in action. The magic gives me Charmed vibes with rhyming spells, gathering herbs and other ingredients, scrying to find things, etc. I thought the tarot card aspect was cool and liked that it was explained early on but then it became pointless as their powers weren't really based on those signs.  I wanted to see if go deeper and explore their specific powers outside of them tapping into their powers together as a whole. I found Scarlett to be more fleshed out than Vivi though Vivi got more interesting to me after the 60% mark. I would watch a movie or series based on this book. And this being an Alloy Entertainment production I'm sure a series or movie is already in the works. I'll probably read book 2 just to see how it ends. This was marketed as YA crossover but I just don't see it appealing to the adult fantasy readers. It reads closer to what I would've read in middle school.