There is this joy that comes with discovering books for yourself and they end up becoming very good books. It feels like a reward for all the non-good books I read earlier. One book that made me feel this way was Red Queen. This is one of those books I was drawn to by its title. I remember coming across it one day in my library and when I decided to peek through, it was un-put-down-able. Dear Reader, this book I'm about to review is Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard.
The book is a total of 451 pages and is of the genres: fantasy and action. In an unequal society where people are treated by the colour of their blood - Red and Silver, Mare, a young girl who seems to be good at nothing else but pickpocketing has accepted her fate that at 18, she should be conscripted and sent off to war, to defend the silvers. The Reds have no abilities but the silvers have abilities. When Red's best friend suddenly goes out of work as a result of his master's death, he fears conscription and talks to Mare about it. Mare, being who she is makes an attempt to get her and her best friend away from everything, at the price of a thousand crowns.
Confident Mare, strolls into the palace, a silver dominated territory, to hustle for the price. That faithful day, chaos breaks out in the palace and for the first time since she became a pickpocket, she is caught. But luckily, she isn't sentenced to death. Instead, she gets to work as a servant and in the presence of the king, princes and other nobles, Mare discovers herself. A red girl with abilities. The discovery of her ability marks the beginning of a battle between the silvers who want to reign over the reds and the red, tired of being suppressed.
I don't think I've read a book in a very long time that has made me pause my reading and begin to review it. I read this book and I kept on jotting down my opinions because I'll not like to miss a thing when reviewing a book I enjoyed so much. I'm not really a fan of action novels. The last time I read a book in the action genre was about two years ago. But with this, I kept on reading and didn't realize this was of a genre I didn't find so appealing till I got to the end of the book. When a reader becomes invested in a work based on a genre she's not into, an author best believed they've achieved whatever er it is they wanted, with that book. Victoria Aveyard did a good job with this book, as far as I'm concerned.
Do I still need to talk about the plot? Of course. I loved the plot so so much. The way Mare kept on discovering more and more of her limitless ability, was the highlight of the book for me. Mare was a character, although I do not relate to her, I understood what she was going through and why she did many of the things she did. Every plot twist that was introduced, made the story more gripping as I delved deeper. You must have guessed, I loved Mare as a character. Her strength was something I loved. She was headed in the wrong direction from the start but seeing her pick up herself and focus on channeling the right energy into bettering herself and her skills, made me happy.
There were many characters I liked and many I didn't but for the sake of avoiding spoilers, I won't talk about them. But there was good character development for our main characters. The side characters? Not so much. I was surprised when I got to the end, only to find out it's the first in a series. I didn't like that actually since I was in the mood for a standalone. But seeing it was a series, explained why many of the side characters that were introduced later in the book weren't developed fully.
After reading this book, I began to see many reviews by people saying they didn't enjoy this book. I honestly have no idea why because I enjoyed it so much but I'm glad I saw it after reading. Who knows? It might have had a huge influence on my reading. I really enjoyed this book and it will be amazing if you give it a read too. You might enjoy it too, like me.
I'll rate this book a 7/10. This was a fast-paced action novel. One of the many book read in 2024 and actually enjoyed.
Thanks for reading
Images are mine.