All hail Victoria Aveyard – the new Queen of dystopian fiction. For me, Red Queen was an incredible blend of action, fantasy, politics and romance as well as a captivating and exhilarating debut.
Red Queen follows Mare Barrow, a girl living in poverty and pick–pocketing to survive. But then she turns 18 and is forced to fight in a centuries old war – all because she has red blood. Mare lives in a world where people are divided by the colour of their blood, red or silver, and it’s all due to the god-like powers of the silver-blooded nobles. But after a strange encounter and a whirlwind day among the royals, Mare Barrow unlocks powers only a Silver should possess, powers that could destroy Norta forever and powers that could save it.
Aveyard’s descriptive language is beautiful and poetic in a way that I can’t help but admire. Her riveting words easily had me empathising with Mare despite the fact that I found her slightly conceited and hypocritical. Also, for most of this book I was completely in the dark, so every time the plot thickened and took another unexpected twist I was utterly shocked.
The only issue I had with this book was the inconsistency of pace. Chunks of the books were gripping and addictive, boiling my blood with tension and excitement, but at other times I was fighting not to fall asleep because the action was so slow.
The last thing I have to say is simply a warning – if the next books in this series are anything as good as this, The Hunger Games and Divergent need to watch out.
-
Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop
Want to tell the world about a book you’ve read? Join the site and send us your review!
