Book Review: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
“It’s our nature. We destroy. It’s the constant of our kind. No matter the color of blood, man will always fall.”
Diving straight in, the first 60-70% of this book drove me completely nuts. It was slow and full of inconsistencies and eye-roll worthy ideas. I don’t have a clear picture of the world because it was never really described. The people travel in boats, transport, airships, and the prince even “invented” the motorcycle, but is it modern?
Steampunkish? Do they run on gas? Electricity? Guess I’ll have to ask a tech from the tech city. Yes, there’s a city FULL of techies. You would think they could control the world, but they seem content to work until they die in an overly polluted city even though they could probably invent weapons that could rival the powers of the Silver-bloods. You know, since they have tvs, security cameras (thousands of them, apparently), and, get this, FORCE FIELDS.
I wish I had make-up like Mare’s. In order to hide that she’s a Red-blood, she has to wear make-up that makes her skin lighter to match the Silver’s. Apparently it lasts all day and is sweat/water-proof. The author really missed an opportunity for an “uh-oh, almost got caught” moment with the rain.
The Silver-blooded powers seem to be unlimited. We keep being told that they are limited, but we are never shown-especially with the queen. They also only show the super-powered Silvers and not the Silvers with smaller powers. Maybe that’s being saved for another book, but it wouldn’t have hurt to see it while it was being mentioned.
What aggravated me the most is the key point to the story, what is supposed to hold the story together, doesn’t make a lick of sense. Mare is a Red with powers, forced to pretend to be a long-lost Silver of a noble family, but the story the queen concocted was absolute rubbish. The queen would have to kill everyone in Mare’s village to keep her “secret” from getting out, and even then you’d have to be completely stupid to believe it.
Mare herself isn’t exactly the brightest crayon in the box, either. She gets great advice from plenty of people along the way but chooses to ignore them and, oopsie, causes trouble because of it. It’s really hard to follow Mare, much less like her.
The other characters are very flat. You don’t really get to know much about their characteristics or given a hint of their personality until the end of the book. The king, who should have a major roll as the ruler, is just a place card and hardly has any part in the story at all.
Overall, Red Queen was a disappointing read for me, but if you enjoy ya-fantasy and can overlook the inconsistencies, you might find something in it.
