Red Queen

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard, 383 pages

Mare's world isn't just stratified by the haves and have nots, but by the color of blood. If you have silver blood, then you have all the wealth, prosperity, and power in world - both the power to rule, but also physical power in the form of a special ability. But if your blood is red, then your life is not much more than a fight to survive. Mare is a Red. Her three older brothers have all been sent to the frontlines of Norta's never-ending war, and unless a miracle happens, she will likely be next. After a series of unfortunate events, she finds herself where she thought she would never be - with a job, working for the Silvers attending the Queenstrial. As the favored silver daughters demonstrate their abilities for the king and queen, hoping to be picked for betrothal to Cal, the crown prince, an accident happens, and Mare finds herself plummeting to an early death by electrified shield. Except she doesn't die. It's determined that she is something new and different and scary for the silvers in power - a Red with silver abilities, specifically the ability to manipulate and use electricity. And so she is thrust into the world of the silvers, hiding in plain sight, so to speak, as the betrothed of the younger prince, Maven. But when she's contacted by the Red Guard, a group of guerrilla fighters determined to take down the system oppressing them, she decides to work for them and help them further their cause. But trust in a world of secrets, lies, and machinations is a fragile thing to maintain.

Red Queen is a hard book for me to judge, and if the reviews on Goodreads are any indication, I'm not the only one. While reading it, I found myself greatly enjoying it, but when I wasn't reading it, it was largely forgettable. Part of the reason why probably has to do with the fact that it seems to mash together elements of several other popular YA series (Bardugo's Grisha trilogy and The Hunger Games for sure come to mind) with the more unique elements of the world Aveyard is creating. It has a weird almost love square at play between Mare and the other male main characters her age that was sometimes intriguing, but not enough to get me to root hard for anyone. I figured out the reveal at the end fairly early, but the twist took me surprisingly longer to figure out. It definitely benefits from Aveyard's skills as a scriptwriter. Despite the feeling of having read much of this before, she kept the plot moving perfectly, so it should adapt to the big screen without much of a challenge. So basically I enjoyed it, but there wasn't much there to make it a stand-out for me. Pick it up if you're a die-hard YA fan like me, but otherwise, you're not missing much.