Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard (REVIEW)

A Reader's Pandora

You are no match for us. We are your betters. We are your gods.

I love books. And I love loving books. Good books, at that. I wouldn’t like to love a book that I hate. I love fantasy books and not the “Save the princess and collect the gold!” type. No, I love the dark journeys of self-discovery, warring sides, battles and powers that you did not know that the main character—or any character, for that fact—has.

I love to read books that take me on journeys and that let me see the dark side of the people that I am reading about. I love to read about battles and swords and sorcery and magic and love. I love to read about fights and conflict, drama and political intrigue, and most of all: powers. I love powers, and the drama it can bring.

Red Queen brought that. Red Queen is now my favourite YA High Fantasy book of all time. I am not kidding. THIS WAS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. Man, you have to read it to believe it. It was one of the most amazing books I have ever read, and it blew my mind because my mind is still reeling from that ending, that conclusion! I loved it so much. I just loved all of it. Gosh, it was so good and I can’t… just… ugh…

In the stories, the old fairy tales, a hero comes. But all my heroes are gone or dead. No one is coming for me.

Imagine this: X-Men mixed with Red Rising in a kings-and-queens YA Historical High Fantasy world. Am I the only person whose mind is still thinking of how amazing that sounds? Well, let me just give you the plot and then you’ll go out and buy it. Trust me, you’ll love it. It was my jam on toast!

Mare Barrow is a Red, one of the lower class in the world of Red Queen, who steals what she can in order to get her family to survive another day living in the poor Stilts, a village of the lows, of the Reds. And then there are the Silvers, the ones who rule at their kingdom and who have magic at their fingertips whether it means being a shadow, a nymph, or even to use lightning, and when Mare finds out she has one of these powers (which is impossible), all hell breaks loose.

I absolutely loved this book. Rachel E. Carter (author of The Black Mage series) has been completely raving about this book and saying how good it was, how it was her favourite book in a long time AND, GIRL, BELIEVE ME, VICTORIA ROCKED THE YA STAGE TO THE TOP. God, it was so good. The characters, the plot, the writing, the drama, the action, the writing, the writing, the writing!

First off: Mare. MOTHEREFFING BAD-ASS CHARACTER. Starting from the start, she was completely amazing how she stole from people to get her family the things that they not want but need. They need to live, they need to strive, they need to survive in this world and it’s all up to her.

I am a shadow, and no one remembers shadows.

I couldn’t believe so many of the plot twists that happened in this book that it was completely unreal. I had an idea of one of them, but other than that, none at all! I just loved it so much that there was something that was mostly getting me going about this book and how much I loved it: the writing, and how much it impacted me. God, I was crying so much about some of the scenes in this book because I don’t know, it was just… amazing.

I loved the action scenes and how the writing used emotions into the writing, by saying how much the characters believed and sometimes didn’t believe that they could do what they were trying to do. They were accomplishing something, but some of them didn’t know it. Some of them didn’t want to believe it, but they knew it! It was true. It was happening… right in front of them, and I loved that.

I loved Cal. I loved his dedication. Cal was my favourite male character of the entire book apart from Kilorn. I really didn’t like Maven.

Before I get into spoilers, may I just say something to Victoria Aveyard: Thank you for writing what was probably my favourite book of this year, and favourite high fantasy young adult book of all time. The characters that you wrote were completely amazing and I loved every second of the book. There was absolutely no point where I was bored and it was pure. It was pure. Amazing. Perfection. Do you know how much I loved it? To the point where I screamed for deaths, cried for characters and jumped in the air when I got this book on my Kindle and also when the plot completely twisted so that I had no idea what was going to happen. I loved it so much! Thank you. <3 <3 <<<<<<<3 THANK YOU.

I’m a Red girl in a sea of Silvers...

I’m serious, this was everything that I need in a book. My reactions:

I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR SOMETHING LIKE THIS FOR SO LONG = a high fantasy with romance, action, conflict, political intrigue and discussions, darkness in characters, and a whole lot of bitchy queens and kings! Seriously, the queen was a major bitch. A Cersei, if you will. A Levana.

Elara:



Wow. My heart is pumping from that ending. GO, MARE BARROW OF THE STILTS!

So. Yep. Favourite book of the year. So far, I mean, of course. c: But yeah. Yep. LOVE.