Red Queen (Red Queen, 1)

I have to say I just don’t get the hype around this series. It’s an intriguing idea but I don’t think it’s been executed as well as it could have been. I bought this book years ago and it took me 3 attempts before I got past the first 2 chapters. I think it’s slow to start in the first few chapters and then after that it is incredibly rushed. We have a girl who is red, Mare, who hates the silvers the powerful ruling class who all have abilities, yet in the space of just a few chapters she is a servant to the silvers, then suddenly has powers and then is a princess and betrothed to a silver prince. And she just goes along with it all. Later on we’re told she’s doing it to spy on the silvers but I just didn’t buy it. Had she been threatened into staying at the palace, with her family being used to ensure her compliance then I could have believe it but I didn’t. We’re then told that Mare suddenly loves both Cal and Maven, the two silver princes with no real build up or emotion or explanation and somehow they both love her too despite the fact that they’ve barely had a conversation. I can understand a building connection between Mare and Maven as they are betrothed although I would have thought she would hate him for the position his family has put her in and it would have been better if they had built their trust slowly, however when it comes to his brother Cal, I don’t understand why he loves her after a very short conversation. He apparently loves Mare and will risk things for her because she’s apparently just so different to everyone else. Mare as a lead character is just very difficult to like. She is willing to sacrifice others, is willing to kill and will let others die to save herself. She is a very selfish character whose moral compass seems to be massively skewed. A similar book of ‘The Selection’ shows America refusing to give a public propaganda speech, she condemns corporal punishment and the unfair treatment of prisoners, standing up to the king even at risk to herself. Mare just goes along with everything she’s told to, plotting the murder of others, sacrificing those who are different from her to further her own cause, even those who have been kind to her and even doing a televised propaganda speech. The differences are just very obvious and it shows that Mare is not a ‘good’ character. I just found the plot went in too quickly with Mare finding herself in all these deadly and precarious situations and somehow very quickly at the very heart of a rebellion. Too much of the plot was just convenience and I think more needed to be done to develop the characters, their motivations and more importantly their relationships. It’s a shame because the idea was good and there are certainly a lot of sequels so I guess a lot of people enjoyed it or maybe the series gets better but for a dystopian, young adult/ teen...

The Red Queen is the first book in the ‘Red Queen’ series by Victoria Aveyard. And what a great first instalment it is, too. At its core, this is a story of discrimination, and the fight of the repressed against their superior magical masters. Our protagonist is thrust into the upper-echelons of society when her unexpected powers materialise, and from there it is a fight to stay alive and to stay true to her roots. This tale of revolution in a techno-medieval fantasy world is surely a compelling one. The Red Queen positions itself in quite a different groove. It is a story about Mare, who is a Red, and her struggles when she is elevated to the position of faux-Silver. In binary terms, a Red is someone without magical powers, a class of downtrodden by the magical Silvers. But Mare is actually magical herself – a quirk of genetics – and hence she is smothered as a faux-Silver to hide this anomaly. But Mare stays true to her red blood: cue rebellion, revolution, and all sorts of fun. One of my favourite things about this book is the environment in which it is set. Most of the time it feels like we’re walking through a classic fantasy environment – perhaps a touch more renaissance than usual, but still. At times though, we are sent spinning by the existence of TV screens, security cameras, and other modern devices. It’s a really cleverly woven environment, and when we approach the capital city, the imagining really steps another level. Some of the ideas are brilliant, and I enjoyed my time in this fantasy world greatly. This is also a really well written book, with very few mistakes, a nice flow, and a certain ‘page-turner’ quality. It is written in fist-person (which is not my favourite), but it is done pretty well and I enjoyed the story nonetheless. Mare is an easy-to-get-on-with lead character, and she is supported by a great cast of other characters too. All in all, a really comfortable read. But comfortable does not imply leisurely. Oh no. This is a well-paced novel with twists and turns coming in all the right places. The ending in particular is very nice, with a great warping of events, and some really emotive scenes. This is nicely setup for the rest of the series. So, was there anything about this that I didn’t get on with? Well, the use of first-person was quite annoying (personally speaking). I think there are a few things about first person that are frustrating, the worst being that it is sometimes hard to catch where an inner-monologue ends and where speech starts. The other thing that first-person does is to lend itself to more substantial inner-dialogue, and this can get a bit cumbersome at times. Overall this book certainly works, but I would personally have preferred a different perspective. In terms of story, there are probably only a couple of things that I didn’t g...

When given this book, and its sequel as a gift I was highly optimistic however as someone with a particular love for fantasy, it is with a heavy heart that I say this book, and its follow ups are truly not worth the read. Whilst the overall concept of this book is exciting and intriguing, the plot and characters both truly let it down. The plot itself, is predictable, slow moving and quite frankly boring, taking a good quarter of the book for anything to actually happen, and the middle of the book being entirely pointless. The characters on the other hand are even worse. The heroin, Mare, has such a hero complex it is actually painful to read. Not only does she elevate herself above the silvers based on her red blood (hypocritical as blood is the reason silvers elevate themselves in the society, and what causes Mare to hate them in the first place) but she also appears to think that the entire world revolves around her. I honestly have not detested a character this much for a very long time - it got to the point that within the second book I was agreeing with the opinions of the characters who are clearly meant to be enemies: Mare is nothing but a brat. The other main characters within this book, of Cal and Maven, are rather likeable in comparison; odd considering Maven reminded me slightly of a young Prince Joffrey from Game of Thrones. I truly wish there was more character development by both of these, other than the wholly predictable revelation of which brother is good and which is bad. Similarly the plot twist, of which the prior revel concerns, is utterly useless. It was obvious that a certain characters death was meant to be heartbreaking, but quite honestly I was more upset that the author didn't take the time to kill of Mare. Overall, a good concept, but really not worth the read if you actually want to like any of the characters that you are reading about.