Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

RATING: 5/5

SYNOPSIS: In a world where those with silver blood (and with it special powers) reign supreme over the non-powered red bloods (and use them as cannon fodder in their never ending war with other countries), Mare Barrow discovers that although she is red blooded, she too has a special gift. When she is discovered, she is thrown into a world of court politics and amongst an ever growing rebellion who’s goal is to right the wrongs of this way of life.

Wow! That was my final thought when I finished Victoria Aveyard’s Red Queen. This was exciting, thrilling, and entertaining. Going into this I knew that Aveyard was a fan of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series and you can see that influence in some small details. Mare is such an interesting character to me because unlike most YA heroines that I read, there is nothing that we have in common. I have more in common with Cal than I do Mare. I also think that Mare is selfish which is an interesting character flaw to have in your main character (especially one that is supposed to help be the face of some organization) and in a lot of books that I read the main character is a tad selfish, but they’re always actively doing something for someone else. Everything that she does comes out of a place of anger and wrong that affects her personally even though she does cite her motives as being for others (which is kind of true but all of her actions stem from wrongs to herself). She does show moments of selflessness, but it’s always when someone she loves is in immediate danger. Also Mare is perceptive, but she is not smart in terms of logically thinking things through which is her downfall 90% of the time. She acts on her emotions (namely anger) a lot and I think that will get a lot worse for her as the series progresses. The cast of characters is also really interesting. I found myself loving almost everyone and I think Cal is the absolute greatest and I can’t wait for his further character development! Unfortunately in this book only Cal, Mare, and Maven go through extensive development so I hope that the later books will deal with Kilorn, Mare’s family, Farley, and Evangeline more because I feel like we barely scratched their surfaces. I’m also excited to see Maven’s development because I can’t tell how much of his actions are his alone and how much of it is his mother’s influence (honestly it will be so interesting to find out his mother has been controlling him this whole time but if that turns out not to be true I’ll be okay). The only problem (and it’s a problem in a lot of first-person narratives) is how exposition is given, you can tell that it’s exposition (in first-person narration it is easier to disguise exposition when the reader and narrator are going through things together and when you’re not things get awkward because the narrator has to explain things to you), but it’s only for three short chapters and after that we dive right in. After the exposition is given, you are taken on a wild thrill ride and when you reach the end you are clamoring for the next book! I can’t wait for Glass Sword to come out in February!

**While I was reading I live tweeted on my Twitter (beware there are minor spoilers) so if you want to see my reactions as I was reading check out #rachaelreadsrq

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