This is a world divided by blood - red or silver.
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 a twist of fate brings her before the Silver court. Here, surrounded by the people she hates the most, Mare discovers that despite her red blood, she possesses a deadly ability of her own.
Fearful of Mare's potential, the king hides her in plain view: betrothed to his youngest son. Trapped, Mare decides to use her new position to bring down the regime - from the inside.
But this is a game of betrayal and lies, and Mare has entered a dangerous dance - Reds against Silvers, prince against prince, and Mare against her own heart...
Red Queen was published this very 2015 by Harper Teen (or Orion Books here in the UK), and is the debut novel of Victoria Aveyard and the first in what I am guessing is a trilogy, because nowadays, every book is a trilogy, and can't stand by itself. Taking place in a what I am guessing is a dystopian world, the God-like beings that are Silvers have taken over the Earth, and those born with Red blood are the commoners, workers of society who burden the labour that the Silvers thrust upon them. This is the story about how on Red Girl becomes their Mockingjay a motivation for change, because she is not like the other Reds at all. She is both Red and Silver, and she will become a force to be reckoned with...
This book is like the Hunger Games meets Percy Jackson-esque
God-like powers meets the Hogwarts Houses meets Roman Gladiators
fighting, all with a Love Square thrown into the ring to complete it
all! (An extract from my Goodreads Review)
Rating: ☆ ☆ ☆
This book has a really pretty cover, I won't lie, and it is the reason I bought it. The synopsis was catchy as heck too, but in reality, we all I know that I bought this book for the cover, and I do not regret that at all!
The story doesn't always look as good as the cover, however. Let's just get that one out there, shall we?
Anyway, first off; how do I pronounce this chicks name? Is it Mare as in the female horse mare, or is it supposed to be said like 'Marie' or 'Mary'... What? I don't have a clue, so when reading this, I just read it as it looked; like the 'mare' that is a female horse. Neigh!
Seriously though, isn't this a stupid name for a character, at least spelling wise? It's pretty dumb.
Also..
Whhhhhy is this not a stand-alone book!? WHY!?
Okay, so confusions and partial-whining out of the way, let's tackle this review and try and get some things said and out in the open, shall we? Yes, let's!
Set in a dystopian land, we are introduced to the Stilts, a rather poor district where those born with blood that is red live. Introduced to us is Mare Barrow, seventeen years old and our lead character of this story. She has no particular talent, aside from being pretty damn good at petty theft, and of course she loathes the Silver's, a bunch of elite, God-like beings that overrule them all and basically treat the Red's like slaves and use them as their little pawns in the war. They suck, basically, and Mare is a little pissed off with them, but what can she do? This is life, and life's a bitch.
Of course, life takes a turn suddenly when Mare discovers that she herself has a power within her, making her an anomaly in this world of Red and Silver; she is both, somehow, and that's something that the Silver's cannot ignore, yet something that they want to hide to the best of their abilities. So, Mare is paraded around as a Silver, but this an unfair world that Mare wants to change, and she wants to change it from her new vantage point: the inside.
Now I won't lie, I did enjoy this book. There is a lot about it that I don't like, I admit that, but overall I do enjoy what the book has to offer. Red Queen has a good idea, and it is a great reading experience if you ever decide to pick it up for the hell of it, because the writing is solid and Aveyard has a great sense of atmospheric writing. But... it really isn't all that, okay?
I get why people like it, it's entertaining and at points it is gripping. When I was reading the last five or six chapters, the most exciting chapters of the book might I add, I felt sick with anticipation. I was hooked, and it was fun to read! I love that, with each page, I wanted to get to the end to find out what had happened, who had died, what was to be... yaddy yada yada, I wanted to continue, and that earns brownie points for me, because I do love a book that can make me feel sick to the stomach with the want and need to know more.
Aveyard has some serious talent here, and as I said, she really knows how to write with atmosphere. This is one of her strongest points for me as a reader.
She also has one really solid character in this book that I absolutely adore no matter what, and that is Maven. Prince Maven is a good character, one of my favourites from this entire book (and let me tell you, there aren't many characters that I like here, hahaha!), and whilst what happens to him in the last few chapters of the book is stupidly obvious (foreshadowing; Aveyard knows this not), I still think he is freakin' awesome! He had a good personality written for him, and at the end I was definitely feeling a lot of emotions for him, due to what happens. If you've read it, you may understand, but lots of anger and rage and disgust went through me, and yet, I still liked him as a character. Powerfully written characters, man!
Also, the ending. Whilst I don't like where the ending went (in fact, it annoyed me a heck of a lot), I liked that Aveyard led me astray for a few pages. I really thought that this ending would be different for a while, and even though it didn't go the way it could
Again though, it sadly never happened. Damnit!
Now, whilst I do like the book, there is a lot about it that pisses me off too, and it's these things that will stop me from buying the sequel (urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh) when it eventually comes out. That is if I remember what pissed me off about this book. I might forget, okay?
Firstly, I want to note that this book, whilst it is gripping and entertaining, can also get really slow and dull. Around the middle of the book, I almost stopped reading. It had slowed down, it became a little boring, and there was nothing to note during that portion of the book, really. In fact, I can't even remember what happened, it was that... well, bland. I didn't read Red Queen for a few days because the story dragged, making it feel like needless fodder to feed us so many pages to get it to the 300+ mark. They were unnecessary pages in my opinion, and they just made me want to fall asleep.
Secondly, this book, in all of it's loveliness, has this really glaring issue that is in quite a few YA novels, depending what you pick up: Bitches. Bitches everywhere. That girl isn't Mare? Oh, she's a bitch. She isn't a friend of Mare's? Then she's a bitch, she hates Mare, or Mare is jealous of her. Mare's little sister, Gise? She's perfect, more perfect than Mare, meaning that Mare's mother likes her more, so we need to hate Gise. When Mare meets her sister again later on in the book? Gise's clearly jealous of her.
If she isn't Mare, then we gotta hate her! Sorry, girls, but we can only like Mare, and the hoard of boys after her. It is how is in YA land.
This trope pisses me off a lot, because it's unnecessary, and it's only there to make the lead look like a martyr, a saint, which Mare isn't (though the giant Mare-fest and how even she sees herself as a martyr shows us how much Aveyard wants us to view her as such) because honestly, Mare herself is a bitch, and I don't like her character. She annoys me, she whines, and I kind of want to hit her.
Oh, and she's compared to the late Queen, Cal's mother (Cal is a love interest, for those who may not know!) who was apparently wonderful as well. So, yeah. Mare is supposed to be great, lovely, perfect, the girl all guys want... she's a Mary-Sue.
There is also a lot of obvious foreshadowing in this novel, and quite a few cop outs, too. Honestly, Aveyard, regarding your really poor foreshadowing; there are only so many times that you can say 'electricity', mention the death of one character many times throughout or notify us of an impending betrayal by using the line "Anyone can betray anyone" frequently before I get it into my head that you're pushing us towards whatever you're wanting to take us to. If you're gonna foreshadow, please do so discreetly, because it was pretty damn obvious after the third time these things were mentioned that I knew what was going to happen. Be subtle, 'cause it's annoying when someone spells the entire plot out to me before I can even get excited as to how the story will pan out.
My biggest pet-peeve throughout this book, though? The chemistry, or lack of, if you will. Oh, there is no chemistry, unless you count Mare and Maven (my OTP), the pairing that is apparently not meant to be.
There is a Love Square in this book; Mare likes Kilorn, she likes Cal, and she likes Maven (she likes the bush on the roadside too, I bet), but of the three potential love interests that Aveyard wants to push us towards, it is Cal and Mare, and they have no chemistry whatsoever. They don't feel like they want each other, they don't feel like a couple. They just seem like two random people, awkwardly shoved together to try and make a whole.
It's badly written, their scenes together, and it just feels so tense and terrible, and I laughed at the embarrassing attempt Aveyard pursued to make me believe that this couple could actually happen. No... just no!
I said that Aveyard is good at atmosphere, and she is remarkable at it, she really can write a good scene, but romance? Nope.
Regarding the Love Square though, was it necessary? Doubtful, because it just felt like an awkward 'Mare hates any girl who likes the guys she likes only because the writer wants us to believe that' kind of thing. It didn't feel real, there was little to no feeling, and Mare just... please don't get with anyone aside from Maven, Mare. He's the only one you actually work with!
As I said in the beginning of this review though, I do like this book, but there are a lot of issues with it as well. It's a good idea, but its own underlying problems are pretty big in comparison, and also, it just feels like another YA novel that I've read before. It reminds me of Hunger Games and Mockingjay quite a lot, and I can't shake that similarity when reading Red Queen. It's a fun read, but would I read it again? Maybe not, because it isn't the best book I've read, but it isn't the worst.
Victoria Aveyard can write, and she writes bloody well, but she needs to work on writing chemistry for her characters, and she needs to world build a little more, rather than focusing on Mare and her parade of love interests, or her power or how much of a martyr she (apparently) is. It is a good book, but it could have been better, and if Aveyard killed off the two chemistry-inept lovers Cal and Mare at the end? Damn, that would have been an awesome way to end it all!
It's good, but it's not great. I just hope that Aveyard continues writing, and hey, maybe one day I'll find something new by her, and I'll enjoy that even more than I did this. I look forward to her future writing.
If you wish to read a more condensed version (not really XD) of this review, or just want to see me use some gifs in a post, please read my Goodreads Review HERE!
Until next time! May the Reading and Writing Gods be with you! Peace, yo!
~Kelly
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