Fairytale Reader: Review: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

Publisher: HarperTeen
Format: Paperback
Series: Red Queen #1
Pages: 368
Date Finished: 18.05.15
Rating: 2/5
Summary: 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.

You know when you read a book and there are characters, not necessarily villains, who the author clearly wants you to hate? In Red Queen, I loved the people I wasn't meant to. This review is basically going to be a love letter to MY QUEEN Evangeline.

If you've read Red Queen, I don't think you were expecting that.

I'll get to Evangeline in a minute, but I'll start with saying that I can understand why this book has mixed reviews. I get why people love it, but it caused so many eye rolls and exclamations of for fucks sake that I just couldn't rate it higher. There is nice prose and in places it was entertaining, but huge parts of it were just so dull. It wasn't as if it was slow--I just didn't care.

“The truth is what I make it. I could set this world on fire and call it rain.”

I hated all of the characters apart from two. By the end, one of the characters that I actually liked revealed a secret and I think the reader was meant to hate them... but I didn't. If anything I just rolled my eyes and kept reading. I won't say who because of spoilers, but Aveyard didn't make me like the people I was supposed to, or hate the ones I was meant to.

I found Mare really infuriating. I get that she isn't this perfect hero and that's fine. I love characters who aren't perfect. She just did so many annoying things, and I just didn't get her. In the very beginning of the novel, she wants to escape conscription to the army (this isn't a spoiler as you know she doesn't join just by looking at the summary) and this person says to her that she could get her out of it for two thousand crowds (the currency). Mare identifies that this is enough to feed her poor and hungry family FOR YEARS, but she still decides to go ahead with it. Ugh.

“In the fairy tales, the poor girl smiles when she becomes a princess. Right now, I don't know if I'll ever smile again.”

Also, like other reviewers have said this book just didn't feel original. I take notes whilst reading for reviews and they included:
Page 50 - This feels a lot like Red Rising...
Page 56 - OH LOOK, A WILD 'THE SELECTION' APPEARS.
Page 191 - THIS IS FUCKING PANEM WITH MAGIC

Yeah...

The character of Evangeline is introduced as the classic mean girl. She's pretty, engaged to the Crown Prince, talented and a little bit bitchy. If I was supposed to dislike her because of that, it wasn't working. How could I hate her when she was a badass girl who did the job she was raised to do, succeeds, and also has kickass powers? There's this scene where girls are presenting themselves to the princes ~~for the selection~~ to use their abilities to help them get chosen to marry the princes. All the girls come along in pretty dresses, but Evangeline is wearing a tight suit. With metal studs. And she fucking works it.

She is kind of bitchy, but Evangeline is the product of the world she grew up in just like Mare is. I understood her and her emotions were rational. Mare gets annoyed with her because Evangeline is pretending to act all lovey dove with Cal, and because she's happy and honoured to be chosen. THAT'S HER JOB.

“A lie will raise me up, and one day another lie will bring me down.”

Anyway...

Whilst there were bits that were entertaining, I just didn't care enough about what was going on to be enthralled by it. The world building felt as if it was too much. I expected a high fantasy, but there was technology as well as magic and I just don't think that it was developed enough.

I have to admit, this book isn't all bad. I completely get why people love it, but on the whole it just wasn't for me. I found the way that all the characters weren't black and white really interesting, and I did love how Mare made mistakes. They just pissed me off. A lot. This is a great book, but maybe it's a little over-hyped and it isn't really my thing. It's a shame--I really wanted to like this one and I just didn't.

I'll end on a non-whiney note. Let's have an awesome quote.