Red Queen

Red Queen

 

Victoria Aveyard

 

 

This really upsets me because I expected to enjoy this. I thought that the idea behind the book was great, but it was not executed properly. I've also heard that Red Rising is pretty much the same concept, so I'm hoping that it will be a better experience.

 

**SPOILERS BELOW**

 

 

Goodreads blurb:

 

"This is a world divided by blood – red or silver.

The Reds are commoners, ruled by a Silver elite in possession of god-like superpowers. And to Mare Barrow, a seventeen-year-old Red girl from the poverty-stricken Stilts, it seems like nothing will ever change.

That is, until she finds herself working in the Silver Palace. Here, surrounded by the people she hates the most, Mare discovers that, despite her red blood, she possesses a deadly power of her own. One that threatens to destroy the balance of power.

Fearful of Mare’s potential, the Silvers hide her in plain view, declaring her a long-lost Silver princess, now engaged to a Silver prince. Despite knowing that one misstep would mean her death, Mare works silently to help the Red Guard, a militant resistance group, and bring down the Silver regime.

But this is a world of betrayal and lies, and Mare has entered a dangerous dance – Reds against Silvers, prince against prince, and Mare against her own heart."

 

The one thing I really enjoyed about this was the world-building. I didn't feel like it was intricate enough and a lot of people and places were mentioned without being fully described, but the idea of the powers and separation by blood was pretty detailed. We got a feel for what silvers could do and why they held power for so long.

 

All of this fell flat with the characters. I just wasn't into Mare. I didn't feel her hatred for the silvers which should be all-consuming. These are people that have murdered and enslaved her people and within two days as a silver, she's already getting giddy over the princes. If this is something she's felt for her entire life, it should take much longer to overcome and much more in order to do that, not just someone teaching her to dance or defending her. I was honestly more interested in hearing things from Kilorn's perspective. There was no need for a love triangle/square, or any love interests in general. This is the thing that bugs me, I'm fine with romance in action novels, but this is supposed to be about a revolution which is one of the most important things to talk about in a dystopian society, and once again all Mare can think about are the boys. It needs to be balanced in a way that doesn't make the romance the main concern of the novel. I knew more about Maven and Cal than I did about the Scarlet Guard and that just infuriated me.

 

Then, there's the predictability. It was pretty obvious what was going to happen (maybe not the exact pinpointing of the ending, but the general idea). I don't understand how you can think that you can get away with something when the most evil person in the book can read minds especially when they abhor everything about you. The thing that bugged me the most is that Farley told Maven and Mare their plans. This is a top secret revolutionary group that has been forming for a LONG TIME and is SUPER SECRET. They know how close both of them are to the Queen, but they reveal everything. Don't you think it's common sense to say 'hey, we appreciate that you want to join and maybe we can give you a job, but we just can't take the risk of letting you in on the plans because the Queen could easily extract them from your mind'???????? Why did no one think of this?

It was so blatantly obvious that Maven was just acting. It was also obvious that Shade was still alive.

 

I really hope this series gets better.