Review: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

Greetings, readers! Happy Thursday and thanks for stopping by Fiction Fairies. Today I'll be reviewing the novel Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard.

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 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.com)

Title: Red Queen

Author: Victoria Aveyard

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance

Reviewed by: Cassie

Anywho, let's begin!

The story, at first glance, is very intriguing. Not to mention that there was SO MUCH HYPE surrounding this book and its release. Of course I was curious! A girl with a newly discovered power? Stuck in a palace with people she hates? Rebellion? Sounds marvelous.
But as I continued reading Red Queen I soon became bored. There are so many plot faults! Coincidences should stay coincidences, you know? Royalty doesn't just magically visit your town when you're in the middle of a crisis. Even if they do, what are the chances that they offer you a very valuable job the next day? And it just so happens that the first day of your new job you discover you have unheard-of powers? So instead of killing you, a very large threat, the King and Queen decide to engage you to a very important person? It doesn't end there. I mean... Goodness. Mare goes from one event to the next so quickly it's dizzying. It doesn't make sense, is very loosely connected, and all serves to drive the plot. It got old quick. The huge plot twist at the end... Come on people. Was it seriously that shocking?

And the characters?

As you can tell, there were problems here as well.
At first I was optimistic. No one bothered me, I liked a few... And then stuff happened.
To start with: love triangles usually suck. This was proven yet again in this book. Mare was annoying and continuously wavered between the two guys.
Women instantly hated her. Men were charmed by her.

How boring is that? And cliche? Basically the three main characters are bothersome.

I REALLY wish I could have liked the villain of the bunch. I mean, I admit to being partial to the dark ones... the "monsters"... the ones who leave a path of destruction in their wake. They're interesting.

As you probably know, my boy the Darkling is my favorite. I will include a visual below to make myself less grumpy as I write this post. Perhaps you will enjoy it as well.

The Darkling

But the monster in Red Queen did nothing for me. I tried really hard to find a glimpse of depth, of brilliance, of anything! - but all I could see was a 2D, cliche, static character.

Boo.

Then we have the side characters: Kilorn, Julian, Elara, the queen, more people I forgot about... They're brushed to the side and never examined closely. Julian (her tutor) had potential... until he lost his integrity and logic, becoming out-of-character and reckless. Apparently, Mare inspired him to action. Also, she ruined his life.

 What's new?

The romance was so horrifying and unsatisfying that I won't even go there.

That bad.


I've also heard many people complain about how similar this is to Red Rising. I haven't read this book, but from what they tell me, it's basically the same. Only Red Queen is a shoddy imitation.

To conclude: I know people liked this. People really enjoyed it, in fact.

I was not one of these people. And I can't even come up with a reasonable excuse, like "it wasn't my cup of tea"... because this is usually right up my alley.
I just detested the book. Maybe it was the writing style?

If you have any comments to share, I'd love to hear them!

Kisses~~
Cassie