Book: Opal (The Raven Cycle 4.5) by Maggie Stiefvater

Ronan and Adam. I am living and breathing for these two. I haven't shipped anyone this hard since Buffy and Angel. With Opal, Stiefvater gives us an alternately sweet and bittersweet glimpse into the life these two are winding around themselves. It's a summer in-between story presented from Opal's (nee Orphan Girl) oblique perspective on The Barns and its inhabitants. Ronan and Adam are hazed by diffused light and we get to see them folding themselves around each other in nook and cranny moments almost jealously given up by Stiefvater. Opal is full of the things that she does best: foreshadows that I suspect will stretch long into the upcoming Dreamer Trilogy, small, living moments used to reveal character (thus making me fall even deeper in love with Ronan and Adam). Opal, herself, is a great character and I loved how alien she is. She doesn't fit into the world that she now finds herself in, but at the same time she is OF IT. She's an odd, quirky corner of the Pynch universe and although I know fandom seems to like to make her a daughter of sorts (and I get that cause Ronan is totally kind of an odd dad of sorts - he SOUNDS like somebody's dad, anyway), but Opal really isn't, either. She is this curious reflection of Ronan and it is heartbreaking to realize that as much as Opal loves Adam is how much RONAN loves Adam. That realization is painful, sad, sharp, and so sweet that I ache with it.

All in all, a great tease for the coming Dreamer trilogy. My appetite is beyond whetted.