Red Queen

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Red Queen is yet another one of those books that continually appears in the suggestions section of Amazon for me. I've been avoiding it and I'm not sure why. I keep thinking that I couldn't possibly want to read another dystopian teen drama where the girl is in love with the guy she can't have. I can't possibly want to get involved with yet another magic related trilogy.

I was of course, wrong. I don't know what it is about these books that makes me want to inhale them. They aren't terribly amazing but they aren't terribly awful. In this variation, we have the elite Silvers and the laborer Reds. The color in the titles indicate the color of the blood that they bleed.

The main character Mare is a petty thief just trying to help support her family. One night she happens to run into Cal to whom she tells she life story in all its painful detail. The next day she is collected by the Silver Guards and taken to the palace where she is given a job as a servant. Mare feels conflicted because the Silvers are everything she hates. Oh, and by the way, Cal is the prince. I know you're totally shocked.

Not satisfied with making this a war torn dystopia, the author throws some magical elements into the plot as well. Silvers are the only people who have specialty powers. Except Mare, of course. She accidentally discovers that she has special abilities in the middle of a ceremony. Strangeness then ensues. The King and Queen decide to make her part of the family and betroth her to their second son Maven. As Mare begins to learn more about the world she's living in thing go terribly awry.

This is not the most original concept in the world, however, it does keep the reader engaged in the story. It pulls a bit of a Hunger Games ending and it will be interesting to see where it goes from here.

If this is your genre, you won't be disappointed. If you are sick of this genre, go ahead and steer clear.

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