Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard: There will be spoilers because I don’t care

Red Queen 

by 

Victoria Aveyard 

Since I started blogging I have never wanted to DNF a book so much. Well, that’s not completely true, there were some shorter books that I groaned through (I’m looking at you The Sun Dragon) but the length of this one, coupled with the fact that I just gorged myself on possibly the best fantasy book literature has to offer, creates a very sad Kat.

              Red Queen is a strange dystopia/fairytale/superhero? Thing about a girl who belongs to the oppressed class known as the Reds. In this world, there are two people the privileged super powered Silvers and the downtrodden Red slaves. Mare (said girl) is scheduled for conscription to the Silver’s endless war on her next birthday. At least until she develops super powers eerily like those of the Silver. So of course, instead of just killing her (which would make more sense and would have saved me from the next three hundred pages) the King and Queen doll her up like a long lost Silver princess and betroth her to their youngest son. Because there’s nothing like putting your GREATEST THREAT IN LINE FOR THE THRONE!!!!! 

I quit.

Characters

Mare: of all the people who could have developed lightning powers it had to be this pile of indecision. If I have ever met a character who was as annoying, wishy-washy and selfish as Mare I must have scrubbed them from my memory. And for good reason. Half the book is Mare getting saved by her THREE different love interests! The other half is her bemoaning how she ‘cant do anything’. Darling, sweetie YOU HAVE SUPERPOWES!!! YOU ARE THIRD IN LINE FOR THE THRONE AT BEST!!! Maybe fifth or sixth at worst. You can do plenty as long as it doesn’t involve any sort of decision or action what so ever! 

Cal: I do believe a brick has been granted sentience and taken on human form. And apparently, Mare’s decision making “skills” are contagious. ‘oh dear I’m going to be king but I’m not going to do anything about the injustice I readily acknowledge because civil war would be soooo bad’. So, you’re telling me that there is no way of easing the country into a massive change?! None at all?! You are a liar sir please go back to being a brick.

Mavren: is probably the only vaguely interesting character but that’s only because he turned out to be a raging psychopath.

 Apparently, the turn was really sudden and unexpected. I didn’t notice because I stopped caring after the romance turned into a love square.

Kilhorn: hey you know what these three guys have in common? They’re all in love with Mare. Why? The heck if I know!

A whole bunch of side characters who die horribly because Dystopia: Oh look at all the fodder characters who I am inexplicably supposed to care about just so I can be suitably devastated when they die.

Likes

I will say this for this mess of a book: You know those points in a book (usually during the revolution/beginning-o-war) where there’s some resounding speech and sometimes the words are so powerful and so beautiful at the same time that you cry a little and feel like cheering out loud. (for the record the Cry of the Icemark is one of those books you should read it) There were a few times where I felt the words tugging on me like that. It wasn’t often and it didn’t last very long but I’m still surprised that characters I despised so much could still say words that made me feel like that. So there you go, credit where credit is due.

Dislikes

Mare dear you joined up with freaking terrorists: what are you doing with your life. And I mean full on bombs in buildings, creepy newsfeed hacking and assassination terrorists.Am I actually supposed to root for these guys!? I don’t think so. And the way they would pick and choose targets regardless of whether or not they were truly against the Reds was sickening.

The plot was nonsensical: and I mean almost comical in its lack of logic. But the worse part was the plot twists. I don’t know if they can even be right called plot twists because they never made a lick of sense. For example, those terrorist I was talking about? Well there’s a bit where it looks like the set of a bomb in the middle of a ballroom. ‘wow the trigger-happy killers set off a bomb in a room full of their greatest enemy! Who could have seen this coming’. 

But wait turns out it wasn’t the terrorists! It was somebody else! And how dare you accuse us of taking innocent lives. You mean like how you did with those other bombs you set off? You make no sense!!

 That freaking ending turned around and tried to make me care about complete jerks: nope I refuse. Hey if it’s somehow alright for Mare to say that it makes it easier for her to kill another character’s brother simply because said character was hanging off the arm of ‘her true love’ I can downright refuse to care about characters that have been nothing but cruel since page one. And don’t get me started on Mare’s oscillating romantic feelings because I think I exploded after she changed her mind for the tenth time. Don’t make me laugh with that little ‘I choose no one’ revelation because all know the second book will roll around and Cal will be the brick impersonating bad boy love interests.

Speaking of the second book I will not be getting it.