Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard has all of the boxes checked to become the next big YA thing.

Love triangle-ish thing? Check!
Girl discovering power she never knew she had? Check!
Girl being blackmailed into things she doesn’t want? Check!
What about an arranged marriage? Check!
Revolution against the government? Check!
Complete blindsided betrayal? Check!

Mare is a Red, a commoner who discovers that she has a power that is only graced to the Silvers of their world. A lowly Red should never be able to do the things she can do. She quickly gets caught up in palace politics while trying to figure out whom she can and cannot trust. While Red Queen has aspects of all of the things I love in some of my favorite YA’s, this one just didn’t work for me. I liked it, I just didn’t love it. I think it will be hugely popular; the hype is already out of control for it. It felt like a mash-up of Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone, Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, Pierce Brown’s Red Rising and maybe a dash of Tahereh Mafi’s Shatter Me. Seriously, these are all some of my favourite books but Red Queen, to me, just didn't bring anything exciting. While none of those four books does anything completely ground breaking Red Queen felt less original, it felt like it just wanted to be a best seller. I had no attachments to any of the characters so I found myself just speeding through the book without care. This was unfortunately just way too over-hyped and it put my expectations way too high. ( )

3.5 ⭐ ( )

I was so very pleased to pick this book up after deciding to leave off on The Scorch Trials right in the middle of itself. I very much ended up liking this book, even though I did figure out the hard, surprise twist by about 50-75% of book, because in my head there was only one big betrayal that could happen to the character that would derail where the novel had been leading.

I do like the stratification displayed in both the Reds, and then the slow revealing of it in the Silvers. I'm curious about the powers and I hope we learn more about them. I, also, hope we learn more about The Scarlet Guard, The Choke, the Lakelanders, and everything else. I can't wait to see some of the effective character changes and arcs coming, too.


My only tiny complaints with this novel was that the author is too reliant on the word 'smirk' and 'murmur,' and then, following closely, 'mutter.' I bet this will be something that slowly winnows down as she learns through her first books. ( )

I need a break from this story.
This book felt like one time too many with the super-special girl and her multiple suitors, the oppressors and oppressed, the noble rebellion, etc.
There were some elements I hadn't seen mixed together in a dystopia before, but in the end, there wasn't enough new here to grab me. And when the plot holes emerged, I wasn't invested enough to willfully overlook them.
I think I might have had a different reaction if I'd read it before the genre got so saturated. At this point, it just felt like I'd been here before.
( )

2.5 ( )