Book Review: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

My Rating: 3/5 Stars

Author: Victoria Aveyard

Genre: YA Fantasy

Published: 2015

I've seen so much hype for this book and when I asked I had dozens of people telling me to read it. I finished it in three days and while I was slightly disappointed in the amount of action I still enjoyed it.

Goodreads Synopsis: 

This is a world divided by blood – red or silver.

The Reds are commoners, ruled by a Silver elite in possession of god-like superpowers. And to Mare Barrow, a seventeen-year-old Red girl from the poverty-stricken Stilts, it seems like nothing will ever change.

That is, until she finds herself working in the Silver Palace. Here, surrounded by the people she hates the most, Mare discovers that, despite her red blood, she possesses a deadly power of her own. One that threatens to destroy the balance of power.

Fearful of Mare’s potential, the Silvers hide her in plain view, declaring her a long-lost Silver princess, now engaged to a Silver prince. Despite knowing that one misstep would mean her death, Mare works silently to help the Red Guard, a militant resistance group, and bring down the Silver regime.

But this is a world of betrayal and lies, and Mare has entered a dangerous dance – Reds against Silvers, prince against prince, and Mare against her own heart ...

For me this book held a lot of potential. I had seen so many people rave about it and say it was so amazing that I was expecting to pick it up, not put it down, and immediately pick up the second one. It wasn't like that. The stories idea was really good. The silver with their powers ruling over the week reds and a girl rising up to fight the injustice of it all. But sadly it just felt like so much of the story was missing. Everything felt a little forced and everything was kind of pieced together. 

I've seen a lot of people compare this book to other YA series and say that it "steals" from a lot of other books. YA is so flooded right now that I feel like we're going to be running into some of the same stories. Red Queen held it's own unique qualities but I can see where people are coming from with that. I felt the few times where Mare was actually with the queen and the other members of the court I got a sort of The Selection series vibe. The whole arena thing definitely reminded me of The Hunger Games. The parts where the war was mentioned reminded me of The Grisha trilogy and the rebellion, like the Selection series was just such a weak point of the series where it should have been the biggest. 

So what did I give this series three stars for? I really, really liked the Silvers powers. I loved how they were split into houses in the court and ranked from best to last. Seeing how Mare thought they were all powerful and then how she started to see through the lies when she came to court was interesting. When the girls were competing and they were in the dome Victoria Aveyard gave us a good idea of all the powers and houses that were coming into play.

Like I said at the beginning this series holds a lot of potential. I have high hopes for the next book. I'm hoping to see the rebellion come into play more. I want to see Mare embrace her powers and Julian to figure out what exactly he is supposed to do. I want to see this whole jumbled mess that is the first book become an epic series with a smashing finale. Maybe my hopes are just a little to high but I'm praying that it will end better than The Selection Series did (all of us people who enjoyed the selection series kind of just pretend that wasn't how it ended *awkward chuckle*).