Review: Red Queen

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Red Queen series is one so many people seem to love, yet I was tentative about reading this one. Based upon the reviews I have read, it’s a series people either adore or hate. Thus, I was fearful as to where I would fall. In the end, however, I decided to take a leap and dive in.

I’ll be completely honest and say it took me quite some time to get into this one. I was interested in seeing what came next, sure, but there was nothing overly major sucking me in. In fact, I was making a lot of parallels to other young adult fantasy series. I’ve read many reviews that compare this book to other popular series, and I can understand why people would make the connections. There were plenty of elements in this book that seemed to be based off a checklist of how to write a young adult fantasy book, plenty of things I have seen before.

However, there was something about this one that slowly sucked me in. By the time I was halfway through this one, I was turning the pages at a rapid pace, unable to put the book down. Despite the parallels I was making to other series, there was something about this one that had grabbed me and left me desperate to see how everything came together. There were elements I wasn’t crazy about, but as a whole I am curious about where this series is going.

Although I did give this one a four-star rating, it isn’t a full four-star rating. At the start I feared I would be giving a three-star rating, but it won me over so much in the end that I had to round my rating up. I’m hoping the next book in the series will be even stronger than this one, and that some of my uncertainties were nothing more than a reflection of how this is the first book in the series. After all, the world did intrigue me – I’m so excited to see more of it, curious to see how everything comes together.

There is no doubt I will be picking up Glass Sword soon, looking for answers. My fingers are crossed Glass Sword will leave me excited to dive into King’s Cage and War Storm – maybe even Cruel Crown for the two prequel stories, Queen Song and Steel Scars.

Overall, I may not be obsessed as many people seem to be but I certainly didn’t fall into the category of hating this book. I enjoyed, and I’m excited to see what comes next – I’m hoping it will be something good.

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