Red Queen

By Victoria Aveyard

This is a young adult fantasy novel set in a world where there are two distinct castes of people. The Reds who have no special abilities and are slaves to the Silvers who have special powers and whose blood is literally silver. This story follows Mare, a Red, who lives in the slums called The Stilts, and earns money by pickpocketing from her fellow Reds. Reds are expected to have a job or they are sent to the war to fight the enemies of the Silvers. Mostly it’s a death sentence. Mare meets a stranger and afterwards finds herself working in the Silver Palace and learns she has a power of her own. 

This book gets very good reviews and is the first book in the series. I wish I could say I loved the book but sadly I did not. I really wanted to like it but it just didn’t appeal to me at all. This is not to say it’s not a good book and if it’s your favorite book then we simply have different tastes.

The writing is good and the characters are fully fleshed out but I found that I just did’t care for Mare. She just didn’t grow as a person given all the political intrigue and machinations. She makes some very poor decisions which lead to some pretty disastrous consequences. Let’s just say I would NOT want to be an acquaintance of hers at all.

The title of the book is very misleading. I don’t want to give away the ending so I’ll leave it at that.

This book is also very dark and very brooding, which I admit is not my favorite type of book so take that for what it’s worth. I’m not saying it’s a bad book I’m just saying it is not a series I will continue to read. 

What I liked about the book was the world building. It is fully developed and so intense. I could picture this very dark and depressing world and it elicited some very strong feelings. 

The ending does have a surprise I didn’t see coming and the author does a good job of setting things up for the next book. 

Full disclosure: I listened to the audiobook and in all fairness I wonder if I had read the physical copy if I would have gotten more out of the book. But to be honest I have no desire to do that mostly because I couldn’t bring myself to care about the main character. 

So I give the book 3 out of 5 stars. Like I said, not my type of book so take my rating with a grain of salt.

Until next time my friends.

Therese