I received this book for free from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
Series: Red Queen Trilogy #1
Published by HarperTeen on February 10, 2015
Genres: Dystopian, Fantasy
Pages: 400
Format: eARC
Source: Edelweiss
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Graceling meets The Selection in debut novelist Victoria Aveyard's sweeping tale of seventeen-year-old Mare, a common girl whose once-latent magical power draws her into the dangerous intrigue of the king's palace. Will her power save her or condemn her?

Mare Barrow's world is divided by blood--those with common, Red blood serve the Silver- blooded elite, who are gifted with superhuman abilities. Mare is a Red, scraping by as a thief in a poor, rural village, until a twist of fate throws her in front of the Silver court. Before the king, princes, and all the nobles, she discovers she has an ability of her own.

To cover up this impossibility, the king forces her to play the role of a lost Silver princess and betroths her to one of his own sons. As Mare is drawn further into the Silver world, she risks everything and uses her new position to help the Scarlet Guard--a growing Red rebellion--even as her heart tugs her in an impossible direction. One wrong move can lead to her death, but in the dangerous game she plays, the only certainty is betrayal.

The mixed reviews of Red Queen and the designation of “crack book” from Gillian (Writer of Wrongs) tempted me into reading it, despite my better judgment. Often, this sort of daring works in my favor, but I can’t say this was one of those times. I was not hugely impressed with Red Queen and slogged through it, even when shit hit the fan at the end.

The strongest element of Red Queen was most definitely the plotting. Red Queen excels at the twisty and unexpected. I was constantly floored by the turns that the plot took. It was surprisingly dark and startling. The end especially was just like whoa. Aveyard puts down a really nice foundation for everything too, so it all fits together really well.

The one caveat on the plot is a bit spoilery, so I’m going into the tags for this. View Spoiler » When Mare’s outed as having powers publicly, the monarchy launches a cover-up. They claim that Mare is actually Mareena, the long lost child of Silvers, raised by Reds. Supposedly, Mareena had no idea that she was a Silver. Fun plot, sure, because she gets to go undercover and hijinks can ensure. However, it makes no fucking sense whatsoever. Reds and Silvers have different blood, red and silver respectively (can you possibly guess which has which?). Am I really supposed to believe that Mareena never broke her skin in a fall or pricked herself with a needle or got a papercut? What about her period? There’s no way that a girl her age wouldn’t know what color her blood was, especially if she blushes as often as Mare does. « Hide Spoiler

The world building is a bit sketchy, but fun enough. Though looking hard I could poke some holes in it, suspending disbelief was totally doable. The concept of the silverbloods and their powers is obviously total Christina-bait. Basically anything X-Men-ish appeals to me greatly. The various powers are really cool and the battles between those of different abilities were super cool. Much of the world building, though, is delivered through clumsy infodumps, which come apropos of nothing currently occurring.

Despite these strong foundations, I found every single character incredibly boring. Mare most of all. There’s really no overcoming that. It was one of those cognitive dissonance books where I KNEW I should be really into what was happening, but my eyes kept glazing over anyway. This is one of those books where no one seems to have any interests aside from survival, which means that no one really seems to have any personality. Mare’s only really sign of personality seems to come from her jealousy of her younger sister, who she later mostly forgets about.

Again, I should have loved the romance. It’s a reverse harem of monstrous proportions. There are the two princes, Cal and Maven, both of whom are expressing interest. Then there’s her hot guard, Lucas, who, though not canonly an interest, totally could be. Then, least of all, there’s Kilorn, her best friend from her Red village. Just know that my brain immediately cast Finn from The 100 as this guy, so he’s basically the worst ever.

I hope this happens to Kilorn if he tries to become a real love interest.

KILORN. The names in this book are incredibly frustrating. Kilorn’s name is by far the most annoying, though Mare, aka grown female horse, is a close second. Of course, Mare’s parents just suck at naming humans, because their other kids are Gisa, Bree, Shade, and Tramy. The latter three are boys. What the fuck is a Tramy? Like what even. And amongst all the ridiculous fantasy names are people like Lucas and Julian, which makes it worse for me. The names were really distracting.

The other issue with Red Queen is the use of italics. Red Queen is told in Mare’s first person present POV. Despite that, she still thinks to herself in italics, even though we are ostensibly in her head and experiencing things live with her. The entire thing ought to be her thoughts and experiences. More confusingly, italics are sometimes used for random emphasis on a particular word, like the word sparks; you’ll later learn why this was done, but it’s still just the worse, because it looks like other words are being clarified. More problematically, some people can talk inside Mare’s head, and those conversations are shown using italics. I honestly don’t know how many people can do this, because I couldn’t begin to tell which italics were Mare thinking and which were her conversing with others.

Red Queen‘s a hot mess. If you find the characters the least compelling, you’ll probably really enjoy it. I’m intrigued enough that I might find myself reading the next book in the series, but I can’t guarantee I’ll still have even that much interest in another year.

Favorite Quote:

“When I fight, I intend to win,” I say instead, throwing her words back in her fact. “I’m not a fool, Evangeline, and I cannot win yet.”

Tl;dr – Review in a GIFfy:

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