Red Queen Book Review

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard (beautiful name) is a fantasy book about a society where the color of your blood determines your rank in population. If you have silver blood, then you are revered, feared, and live in beautiful halls of diamond glass overlooking lush forests and rivers. And you possess magical powers and strengths. But if your blood is red, then you are forced to live, to work in terrible conditions, doing the will of the silvers, following their every order without question. Because if you do, then you will be severely punished. But when one girl, one red girl, makes her way into the palace as a serving girl and finds, to everyone's surprise, that she has powers as strong a a silver, the whole balance is tipped. Suddenly this toughened red pickpocket is stuffed into a glittery gown and made into a silver princess. Mare, the red with the silver powers, dances her way through the deadly game of royalty, power, secrets, and betrayal, and love, all the time trying to make a change for her people.

SPOILER ALERT

Red Queen is an awesome book. I enjoyed the steady, constant way it was written. There weren't any huge emotional or writing style dips, and I appreciated that. The style was thorough all the way through, and I felt the plot line was well thought out and executed. There characters were written well, Mare was relatable and I could really grasp what she was feeling and thinking and why. I loved the idea and the stage the book set; the sort of dirty, grimy world with a shimmering curtain over it. The idea of red and silver blood was clever, and although it was not written as a futuristic book, the glimpses of technology melded with the somewhat medieval hierarchy made for and interesting venue.

As for the actual storyline, I give that a thumbs up as well. The author did what all authors should do, which is not make compromises. When someone died, someone died, they didn't come back because it was just too much emotional trauma for the readers to handle. I must say, the love story could get a bit annoying, with Mare's jumping from prince to prince, and I'm glad that it got sorted out in the end. But honestly, I didn't like Cal much and wish that Maven would've not turned out to be a traitor. But the author did an amazing job, I tell you that she had me fooled. I literally thought that Cal was going to die and her and Maven would get married. When the part about Maven betraying everyone came I was genuinely shocked. Not Maven, I thought, he was so nice! I liked how at the end, when Maven asked Mare to choose, she told him "I choose nobody." That is the kind of strength and independence you want to see in female heroines in books like these. Because Mare didn't need to choose anyone, that's not how she was raised and that's not how she wanted to live her life. When the right guy came around, she would love him, that was no choice that she had to make right then and there, her life didn't depend on her romantic interest. The Scarlet Guard was very interesting, the reflecting it initiated, the sort of introspective examining that it caused on behalf of the reader was really awesome. It wasn't set it stone, you know? This is good, this is bad, sort of thing? It was more like, what is too much? When is it not worth it anymore? What is it ok to trade for something else? And you know, I think there is no clear cut answer. That's why it was engaging, challenging, to read. The book held a lot of concepts that were actually pretty relevant when taken out of the context they were presented in.

Overall I enjoyed this book. It was intellectual, creative, and thoroughly thought out. I can't wait until the sequel comes out in February!

What did you think of this book? Drop a comment down below!