Red Queen (Red Queen, #1)

by Victoria Aveyard

Graceling meets The Selection in debut novelist Victoria Aveyard's sweeping tale of seventeen-year-old Mare, a common girl whose once-latent magical power draws her into the dangerous intrigue of the king's palace. Will her power save her or condemn her?

Mare Barrow's world is divided by blood--those with common, Red blood serve the Silver- blooded elite, who are gifted with superhuman abilities. Mare is a Red, scraping by as a thief in a poor, rural village, until a twist of fate throws her in front of the Silver court. Before the king, princes, and all the nobles, she discovers she has an ability of her own.

To cover up this impossibility, the king forces her to play the role of a lost Silver princess and betroths her to one of his own sons. As Mare is drawn further into the Silver world, she risks everything and uses her new position to help the Scarlet Guard--a growing Red rebellion--even as her heart tugs her in an impossible direction. One wrong move can lead to her death, but in the dangerous game she plays, the only certainty is betrayal.

• ISBN10: 0062310631
• ISBN13: 9780062310637
• Publish Date: 10 February 2015 (first published 1 February 2015)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: Collins
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 400
• Language: English

Reviews

[Jack]

I got through half of this once before but then lost interest. Picked it up again in January I think and it went a lot faster. Still slow for an audiobook, but I wasn't listening to it all the time until most of March when it got warm out and the book got more interesting.

It was a pretty good book, although I felt like the middle plodded along too much the ending moved quickly.

I'm not sure if there was romance in this book or not, I was really rooting for any of the "couples" if there was. and the sudden change from one of the main characters acting one way to another was really abrupt, despite circumstances surrounding them, making the change possible. It just didn't make any sense.

Wish there was more history of the world, more worldbuilding in general. I get that it's supposed to be some far future earth/north east? But that's about it. Maybe in future books, we'll get more history into how the world developed into silvers and reds. Maybe it was a genetic defect, a mutation in the genes.

Overall an alright book, my first audiobook that I listened to in its entirety. The narration was good, characters were decent, although the main female lead could be annoying. The premise was pretty interesting. The middle lagged, the ending was fast paced.

I think I'll pick up the next book eventually.

[bookswithjelena]

Current rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Upon rereading it a third time, two years later, I found it a lot more average. I guess with more that you read and the more excellent books that you read the standard gets higher. So I guess this book just isn't up to tha standar any more.
______________________________
Previous rating : ⭐⭐⭐⭐

[Laurie]

I dnf’ed it

[lauriesbookshelf]

I dnf’ed it

[Joséphine]

Red Queen was a quick and easy read, which was exactly what I was looking for after Mrs Dalloway was such a mind numbing one. For the most part, Red Queen followed a generic YA dystopian plot line, making it predictable. Even the romance and levels of betrayal hardly were surprising. Still, the last 15% of the book did venture into somewhat original territory, hooking me into wanting to continuind with the sequel.

Now, I alternated between the paperback and audiobook. The audio narration kept me interested throughout and is a huge factor in my favourable sentiments. Had I read the paperback only, I might not have enjoyed Red Queen as much — the world building was confined to the existence of Reds and Silvers, with little detail about the setting. The characters weren't all too exciting either. They seemed to only exist in the moment to propel the plot forward but contained little depth beyond that. Nonetheless, the book was entertaining and I do want to continue with the series, so things are off to a fairly decent start.

[Berls]

I've had my eyes on this book since the COVER REVEAL. So please, tell me why it took me so damn long to pick it up? If a friend hadn't loaned it to me, I wonder if I still would be waiting to read it. And I loved it.

I love this concept. It entertains the part of me that loves magical powers you find in magical, fantasy worlds. And it entertains the part that likes dystopian worlds where a group are treated unjustly for some ridiculous reason. In this case it's the color of their blood - the Silver bloods rule and have magical powers, the red bloods don't have anything special and live poor, and are basically fodder for a decades (centuries?) long war.

And then you have the special snowflake. Yeah, I know it's been done. But its fun and I enjoyed seeing her thrust into another world and coming into powers. And what makes it great is the twists and deceit all around. Several twists that I was like "no effing way!!"

Very much looking forward to where the series goes!

[ladygrey]

For all my updates, I did enjoy this book. I expected to say it wasn't surprising because the big shocking thing wasn't surprising at all. And after that it was pretty much exactly what I thought it was going to be. Twice. And then it was surprising, which was fun.

I enjoy the premise of the world. The actual world is fairly typical - all have and have not/elite privilege and extreme poverty. It was two dimensional, uninteresting and unimaginative. The deeper problem with it though was it kept me from being invested in the revolution. I remember reading one scene where they're all fired up about some plan or other and realizing, not only do I really not care, I almost want you to fail. This whole thing sounds like a bad idea. But it ignited thoughts about revolutions and how to do things properly and heroes and villains and causes that were interesting.

Mare was naive, which I didn't mind, though I normally do. It made sense for her to be naive and Aveyard wove entertaining pieces around her naiveté rather than using it to create stupid plot points. Mare was also judgmental, though, and that annoyed me! He's one of them and so he must be bad, despite that he's kind or thoughtful or brave; his actual character cannot sway her from remembering he's my enemy. And you know what, a person's character should count for more than that. Sometimes, I got the sense that Aveyard was trying to poke holes in her own world, to say things are not that black and white, and there's both good people and bad people on both sides. But then Mare would delve into this internal rant about how poor and oppressed her people are and how soft and cowardly and oblivious the others are and undermine the whole idea and also annoy me. Narratively, she didn't show balance in the characters on each side. There's a few good Silvers and no bad Reds - the Reds were flawed but still human, authentic characters and with three exceptions the Silvers were flat characteristics more than characters. And the whole thing with Cal where he tortures the rebel and from then on Mare won't let go that he's a soldier and a general and therefore he must enjoy killing people. And she can never forgive him and never let herself like him. It really annoyed me. Did she think her brothers survived years in the war by being bad soldiers? Because they were good at it, did it mean they enjoyed killing and torture? Did it make her like them any less? Cal was so clearly a good guy and for her to be so stupid about it was, again, really annoying. There wasn't any room with Mare, and because it's first person pov by extension the whole book, for a good person to make a bad choice; to like someone but disagree with them; or to watch a good person do a bad thing.

But there was plenty of room for the reverse, which was odd but appealing. I really enjoyed that I liked Maven even though I never trusted him. He was almost more interesting because he was kind and pretty much a good guy and clearly untrustworthy. Characters should be able to be that more - thoughtful and smart and gentle and also fabulous liars. Then after the coup he gets crushed into this one dimensional tyrant which was exceptionally less interesting.

And while the directness of the storytelling chafed, eventually I got used to it and it didn't bother me enough to keep me from wanting to finish the series. I may not have loved the book, but the fact that it got me to think this much about it works in its favor.

[A Darker Shade of Rosie]

Thank you NetGalley for lending me a copy of this book in exchange for a review!

LIKED:
- I felt like I was seeing so many tropes from other books that I’ve read, and they all mashed into one REALLY good series-starter! The most noticeable was the fact that the Silvers (aptly named because of the color of their blood) had special abilities, like bending and controlling metal (Magneto, anyone?) and controlling water, and fire, etc., and it was like X-Men! Another series that Red Queen made me think of was The Hunger Games – mostly because of the people (Reds) who were living in poor conditions and forced to work and slave for the people who had special abilities (Silvers), and then there’s a rebellion!

[blog & instagram & twitter]

[Cocktails and Books]

A lot happens in this first book. It took me a little bit to get into this one, but once the story got going it was hard to put it down.

[ayla_abbott]

Oh it was YA. Didn't realize that till I finished. That explains a lot.

If I was in middle school I'd probably have enjoyed it a lot. It was fine, but I'm pressurized it won the category; I suppose I'll avoid that category in the future.

Maybe read it on a long flight... It doesn't demand much thought, and there's certainly worse out there, but could have done better.