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WARNING: This review contains MAJOR spoilers. The spoilers don’t come in until the end, and I’ll include a spoiler alert right before the paragraphs that include spoilers, but please continue at your own risk.
I have heard so many good things about Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard, so I’ve had a hold on the audiobook for a while. I was so excited when it was made available to me; this is one of the books that I’ve wanted to read for years because of all the hype surrounding it. That being said, I was disappointed with the execution of this book.
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.(Summary from Goodreads)
RATING: 2.5 STARS
To start with what I liked about this book, I thought the concept of the book was very interesting (albeit a little bit cliché, but I feel like that’s just because a lot of fantasy book tropes are often similar, so I’ll give that a pass). The concept itself was exciting and interesting, and I found myself really excited about learning more about the notions of the plot and the world that this story takes place in.
I also thought that the writing style and sentence flow was really good. Some of the metaphors and descriptions within the prose was so beautifully written and so well described that I found myself being lost in the story, feeling like I could be there. A lot of the dialogue also seemed like it flowed really naturally and sounded like it was dialogue that could actually be happening (it wasn’t choppy or awkward, which I really appreciated, especially since I was listening to it in an audiobook format).
I also just really enjoyed listening to this book. It only took me about 48 hours to listen to the whole thing because I never wanted to put it down and I would listen to it very late into the night, spending all of my free time putting in my earbuds and listening while I did things like laundry or making lunch. However, there was so much about it that bothered me that I’m still not really sure what made me so drawn to this story, but there was definitely some sort of inexplainable quality about this book that made me have a lot of fun while I read it.
However, like I said earlier, there was a lot of things in this book that I didn’t like. For one thing, I felt like a lot of the background and world building was done through info-dumping, where the entire plot of the book would stop just to explain a small detail about the king’s rule or the hierarchy of the nation. I understand that these are important things to include, but I just wish they had been incorporated in a more seamless way that didn’t make the plot and story seem so choppy.
There were also a lot of characters, and every time Mare would introduce a new family (or a new house who had different abilities), I found myself scratching my head, wondering how in the world I was going to remember all of these people and if I was even supposed to. Also, even though there were so many characters, Mare seemed to hate every single one of the other female characters, which is so annoying. She seemed to hate other women for the sole fact that they were women, complaining about their dresses or the amount of makeup that they would wear. It gave her a “not like other girls” complex, which is something that I absolutely hate. There is no reason to hate other girls just for being girls and for not having the same interests as you.
Speaking of the “not like other girls” complex, I found Mare to be a little annoying, although she definitely started to grow on me by the end (although I’m not sure if it’s because I actually liked her or if I just got used to her). I could never get a good read on her, and I couldn’t understand what her motivations behind any of her actions were. For example, when she meets the king and queen and refuses to bow, I was confused as to why. She had spent so long saying that she was scared of the Silvers, so why did she suddenly gain the courage to stand up to the most powerful Silvers in the Nation?
There were a lot of moments like that, where I felt like Mare was contradicting herself, which made me more annoyed with her. When in training, she was watching her peers in the arena, there was a moment where she says that she finally understands why people got so excited to watch Silvers fight in the arena, and she starts to cheer with them. However, maybe two paragraphs later, she gets annoyed with Evangeline and the other Silvers in the room for cheering and being excited about the fighting. There were countless moments like this, where it just seemed like she simply could not make up her mind, but she was also so sure and hypocritical about others.
I also found a lot of the plot to be fairly predictable. In the beginning, when she meets Cal in the inn, I was immediately thinking, “He’s definitely royalty. There’s no way that he’s not.” And then guess what? I was right. And I also thought that it was very obvious that Mare was going to find out that she has powers. Maybe it was just because the book followed so many of the YA Fantasy clichés, but it was so predictable and not super exciting.
THE REST OF THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.
Let’s talk about that ending. I did not like the ending; it annoyed me so much.
First of all, when Maven was trying to convince Mare that Cal would throw away the whole kingdom just for the attempted coup, I was thinking that there was no way that he would do it; the romance between the two of them was so underdeveloped and shallow that I could see no possible outcome that he would do that, and surprise, surprise, he arrested her instead, which was not shocking to me at all.
Also, I’m not going to say that I saw Maven’s betrayal coming, since I definitely didn’t, but I will say that it wasn’t in the least bit surprising. Maven seemed like too perfect of a character the entire time, and I questioned his motivations for the whole book, so when he revealed that he had ulterior motives, I just wasn’t shocked or anything. If anything, I was just kind of like oh, that explains why I got weird vibes from him.
Also, the fact that Mare reverted back to Cal after Maven turned out to be evil confused me. Like, she didn’t exactly say that she was friends with him or anything, but as soon as Maven started to be evil, Mare decides to save Cal and to help him out, which really confused me. Even though Cal had basically every single view that Mare disagreed with. Just because Maven turned out to suck doesn’t mean that his brother isn’t automatically good. So why turn to him and save him?
That being said, as soon as I finished this one, I did put a hold on the second audiobook, which I should get around to reading in the next month. I don’t know, even though there were so many things that I didn’t like about it, I’m intrigued and drawn to this series, and I’m looking forward to continuing the series. Victoria Aveyard seems like she is a great writer with a lot of potential, so I’m interested to see what the next books in the series are like.
Have you read Red Queen? What did you think?
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