Red Queen – Book Review

Title: Red Queen

Author: Victoria Aveyard

Number of Pages: 383 pages

Publisher: Harper Teen

Publication Date: February 10, 2015

Purchase: Thriftbooks//Amazon//Book Depository

My Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Synopsis from Goodreads:

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.

My Thoughts:

I have so many thoughts about this book. I have been going back and forth on the rating and how I felt.

This story isn’t the most original idea and the tropes it uses is found everywhere. I think what confused me so much was that a lot of this book reminded me of The Hunger Games. I had a very hard time getting past this and I still can’t stop thinking about this. Honestly, this could be a stretch but I really don’t think it is. This right here is what makes me nervous about continuing the series.

Mare reminds me of Katniss Everdeen. They were thrust, unwillingly, into the spotlight, both for very different reasons. Their personalities are similar as well as their motives. Both have sisters that they want to protect and want to see them have a better life. They both are constantly reminding people how poverty is tearing their homes apart. They both are having to learn to play a game in order for them to survive. I really don’t want to see Mare’s character and personality fall apart like Katniss did and becoming a whiny brat that is constantly throwing a temper tantrum when she doesn’t get her way. The antagonists tried to make them the face of the royals/government but they ended up the faces of rebellions. You have the love triangle, one guy falling for her and helping them in front of the cameras and the other guy, hometown best friend who wants to protect her.

The characters. They aren’t the most original but they were still very interesting. I was sitting in the class the other day and I wrote out all of my thoughts on these characters with some explanations on who they were. I didn’t plan on putting all of that in this but I decided why not?

Cal is a unique one. He helped Mare, gave her money and then got her a job that would help both her and her family, which at the time made me interested to see how he would influence Mare’s story. He was the reason Mare got into the situation that she finds herself in and he seems apologetic at first but that vanished very quickly, especially after he meets Kilorn. He acts like a stuck up prince and is very condescending but he does care about Mare, Maven, and his father. I honestly would never have picked him as the prince and heir if I hadn’t known going into the story because acts more like a soldier and warrior.

That leads me to his view points. I fully understand that this is what he knows and grew up learning Silvers are better than Reds but it makes him very fickle and inconsistent. He goes to the Red towns, learns about the people, and see how bad the living situations for the people are but he won’t do anything that would anger the Higher Houses and other nations. He won’t help and believes his father is doing the right thing when it is far from the truth. Cal frustrates me to no end with his constant changing views but he didn’t deserve that ending.

Evangeline, Cal’s betrothed, is a bitch, sorry for my language, but she is. She is one of Mare’s biggest opponents and one of the most dangerous. She believes everyone is beneath her and should bow to her. She hates Mare and will literally do anything to humiliate or kill her, all because she hated not being the center of attention. She also loves violence and watching people bleed which is terrifying. I hate her but also love her which I think that’s the point. I am really curious to see where her character goes.

I really liked Maven. I was fully rooting for him when he was forced into a marriage that he didn’t want. I also loved that he wanted to help Mare so much but boy did I love that ending. I think I found my second favorite character.

Besides what I said above, Mare is an uninteresting heroine. Don’t get me wrong, I think what she can do is pretty awesome but it wasn’t too explored in this book. That sucks because it’s the whole reason she is in the situation that she is. It is hard to like a series when the main character is boring.

The queen is probably one of my favorite antagonist that I have read in a while. She wasn’t hiding how she felt or her intentions. I loved people who don’t hide. I mean, she didn’t even hide it from the king.

Basically, I would love this series if you took out Mare and gave me a book with the rest of the people.

I wish there was a little more focus on developing Mare’s character that seemed to happen for the other characters. I didn’t connect with her but with so many other main characters.

I really enjoyed the writing. My biggest issue fell into the over descriptions. Aveyard would describe something than a few pages later would describe it again with more descriptive words and synonyms for what she already used.

I did and I didn’t see that twist coming. I knew the queen was going to do something but I didn’t see the involvement of the other character. That character was also always acting weird the more that I thought about it.

As you can see, I have so many feelings about this book. I’m actually surprised that I want to read the series.

Have you read this? If so, what were your thoughts?

Lets talk about it in the comments.