Red Queen | Book Review

Title: Red Queen
Author: Victoria Aveyard

Series: Red Queen #1

Publisher: Harper Teen

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Dystopian

Pages: 320 (Hardcover)

Average Goodreads Rating: 4.14/5

My Rating: 4/5

Mare lives in a world where Reds are the poor commoners and Silvers are the rulers of the land. When she discovers she has powers similar to what the Silvers have, her life is flipped upside down and changed forever.

This book was definitely worth the hype. It was gripping and fun to read through. I really liked the characters and the plot. If you haven't read this yet, I definitely recommend it.

First of all, let's just take a moment to admire this cover. So one thing I really enjoyed was the writing. It was really easy to follow and the action sequences were written really well. Usually in an author's first book, the writing is mediocre but I think Aveyard did a pretty good job. There was a ton of badass moments, which is always a plus. Often in dystopian books, the love triangle takes over the story but the love triangle (possibly square) took a backseat and didn't overshadow the plot in Red Queen. Some of the characters were really interesting as well. I enjoyed Mare and her ability to understand her emotions and face them head on rather than deny that they exist, as well as the complex personalities of Maven and Cal(sort of).The plot twist was also well done. I had no idea that was going to happen but thinking back I feel like I should have known.

The main reason this was a four star rather than five was that there were too many similarities to other dystopian novels. Throughout the book I constantly found myself thinking "this is a lot like Divergent/The Hunger Games/The Selection/Shadow & Bone". Normally, I don't like comparing books to each other and I understand that dystopian books have a lot of the same elements. However, I felt Red Queen wasn't too original and was basically what Divergent, The Hunger Games, The Selection, and Shadow & Bone would be if they were one book. I also felt that the world building was a bit underdeveloped but there's supposed be a lot more of it in the sequel so it's not too big of a problem. One thing I didn't like was how the characters weren't very real. Besides the three main characters, the others were pretty one dimensional. Mare, Cal, and Maven also had so much room to grow but that didn't happen. Cal's personality didn't really make sense to me either. In the beginning and end he seemed to have a pretty strong personality but it just faded in the middle, but since the book is from Mare's point of view, it kind of makes sense. The villains also didn't have a real reason to do what they did. They were evil just for the sake of it. Another problem I had was the romance. I didn't think the characters had much of a connection.

It seems like I disliked the book more than I liked it but I really did enjoy it. I think the second book will probably solve most of my problems and I can't wait for it to come out! (in 2016 //cries) 

Happy reading!

Hana

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