Book Review: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

 Book Review: 

RED QUEEN

I just finished reading Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard. Upon reading the synopsis of this book, I thought it sounded promising. I love books regarding monarchies and government and rebellion, so this all sounded lovely to me. But when I started reading, I had some serious problems with the plot. Beware, spoilers ahead.

I started to struggle with this novel almost immediately. It opens with a scene in the arena with Silvers fighting one another. I understand that the purpose of this scene was probably to introduce us to the oppression of the Reds in the world and to the power of the Silvers, but it felt off. It seemed like a strange way to go about instilling fear in people. From this point on, much of the action seemed a bit fake to me. To begin with, it didn’t seem likely that King Tiberias and Queen Elara would allow Mare to live after discovering her powers. Lying to their people in order to imprison this ‘little lightning girl’ in their palace seemed ridiculous to me. I understand that Elara may have come up with a means of using Mare to her benefit, but I don’t think it makes up for the fact that this girl was only an insignificant Red with powers unlike any seen before, and that she was better off dead. (For the Silver’s purposes, anyway.) These thoughts continued to occur to me as the novel went on. Some of these doubts were cleared up when Elara announced that she knew Mare’s plans all along, but it still doesn’t make up for the sense of uneasiness I got while reading the book.

My second problem with the book was the dialogue. It sounded so forced and fake to me, especially the cringe-worthy nicknames like ‘little prince’ and ‘little lightning girl’. Not only is that a mouthful, so it doesn’t make sense for a nickname, but it just made me grimace every time I read it.

Now, I do admit that the book picked up quite a bit in the last few chapters. For the first time I found myself really curious about what was going to happen next. This all occurred after Maven’s betrayal (WTF?!), and the book got really good from that point on. But I wanted this kind of action and tension from the get-go, and I just didn’t get that.

On a positive note, the cover is absolutely beautiful. If not for seeing Red Queen all over Tumblr, I would have picked it up for its cover alone.

My Rating:
3/5 Stars