Red Queen (2015)

teen fiction (science fiction dystopian kingdom with unequal status for various "races"; people with superpowers). Really quick read with a heroine who doesn't just sit there and pine for her various love interests (there are 3) like some of them do. ( )

I haven't got invested in a young adult series in a while but I think I will definitely continue on with the Red Queen series. This is a new dystopian fantasy series that is inventive and unique enough to set itself apart from Hunger Games and Divergent (although there are some clear parallels) and yet remains cool enough to be added to those ranks. In Mare's world society is divided between the reds and the silvers. The silvers are the high class people who have special abilities to wield fire, read minds, control water, manipulate metals, and more. The reds are the lower caste, the ones who still bleed red, have no powers, and have been oppressed for decades. Mare's world is turned upside down when she is sent to work in the palace. She has lived in abject poverty her whole life and to see such prosperity and wealth is sickening to her. Mare is secretly rooting for the Red Dawn, a terrorist organization trying to overthrow the silvers and when she discovers that she has silver powers and red blood (a totally anomaly) she finds herself in a rare position to help others and overthrow the silvers once and for all. Engrossing and fun. I can't wait for the next in the series! ( )

I can't believe I sat through reading a whole book I did not like. Derivative plot! Predictable ending! So many smirks! Seriously, how did an editor not catch all the smirks? SO MANY SMIRKS. Out of all the other tedious language and major overuse of cliches, the smirking was *the* most hilarious/ridiculous.

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Counting as my under 25 author for Read Harder. ( )

This book reminds me of The Selection no matter how I look at it. It is like a copy of that series with the added twist of stomach-knotting suspense, blood and dramatization.
A friend recommended it to me, and it so hurts me to say that except the HUGE watershed at the end: there was literally nothing to the book on its own. If is as if that twist itself has its insignia on the entire book, shadowing all its faults, duplicities and in-competitiveness; so much so that people like the entire series on the basis of one little watershed.. Unfair, don't you think?
Reasons, why I feel bad for myself for not rating this 3S: (1) Not original, you can't convince me otherwise, thank you, (2) Pretentious and too exaggerated for my taste, (3) Good character branching, but does that stand out? No, (4) Lacked convincing, I still don't believe the twist at the end was not the author's conspiracy but a realistic fictional-world occurrence.
Still, I might as well be a bit lenient, just this once for [my friend who committed the mistake of recommending this to me]. ( )

It's been 2 months since I read this, and I don't think it deserves the 4 stars...thus the new 3 star rating.

Review:
I am having a very hard time rating this....it's more 3.5 than 4 right now.

Where do I even start?

*sighs*

The main problem in this book, for me, was that there was a love triangle. Or maybe it was a square, I'm not sure. The thing is, as I've explored in my review of [b:The Kinder Poison|42893340|The Kinder Poison (The Kinder Poison, #1)|Natalie Mae|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1587319334l/42893340._SY75_.jpg|66677747], I don't like love triangles. Especially if it's between brothers. I'm not going to dwell too much on that because otherwise the rating will go down further, and we don't want that, do we?

*stage whisper* Do we? Maybe we do, but not right now.

The other part of this I didn't like much was that this was so similar to a lot of other books I've already read. I'm looking at [b:Ash Princess|32505753|Ash Princess (Ash Princess Trilogy, #1)|Laura Sebastian|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1503181967l/32505753._SY75_.jpg|53100842], [b:The Hunger Games|2767052|The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)|Suzanne Collins|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1586722975l/2767052._SY75_.jpg|2792775], [b:The Selection|10507293|The Selection (The Selection, #1)|Kiera Cass|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1322103400l/10507293._SY75_.jpg|15413183], and others I can't remember right now. Or maybe haven't read, because this was a serious rip-off of a lot of books.....or maybe it just tried to include too many tropes.

Yet another part of this I didn't understand (I'm seriously starting to doubt my rating now) Am I the only one to note this? Or maybe I missed something, but I thought that Mare didn't know about her powers. But she literally says something that is quite clearly showing that she knew something was wrong. I'm going to include this:"Normally my head would ache under the weight of so much electricity, but the pain never comes." I included this in my status updates, but this needed a place in my review. It was at 22%, where we don't really know about her powers (Or at least all of us had guessed quite correctly). This really bothered me.

Another thing that bothered me, was why does no one know that water and metals (most of them) conduct electricity. And not only do they conduct, they are the best conductors of electricity. And, since we already know the Silvers can't create stuff, this metal was obviously ubiquitous. And the most obvious metals that come to mind are iron and alimunium. Which are pretty good conductors. I have no idea how that last fight was supposed to make sense. As soon as that guy's hold over her was gone, and the water nymph and metal girl were throwing stuff at her, the slightest bit of electricity should have electrocuted both of them. Pretty quickly.

The ending, well the ending was.....good. I think. I liked some aspects, and didn't others. Here's the thing, I really liked Maxon. I still do, a bit. (I just realised his name is actually Maven, but I'm going to leave it like that) The reason is probably that a) I like redemption and double-crossing, as lond as noyhing unforgivable is done. And b) that I really don't like the other love interests. Cal is just too obvious and perfect, and Kilorn is like Gale; he should remain the best friend. So, I'll probably be happiest if the next book does not include romance. Which, is a bit of a long shot.

I will most likely continue with this series, and I'm hoping it gets better. I would recommend this to anyone who likes the aforementioned books and would not mind something similar to them, likes love polygons, likes a lot of typical YA tropes, and does not mind a bit of non sense-making plot. ( )