The Red Queen Series
Red Queen (book 1), Glass Sword (book 2), King's Cage (book 3)
by Victoria Aveyard
This series is FANTASTIC! One of the tricks that many author take a long time to master is the ability to surprise the reader. In teen novels, this is especially apparent in mysteries; you can usually see whoever "did it" before the author actually has the reveal. Victoria Aveyard has managed the unlikely... and not only does she surprise the reader, she does so many times in one novel. Victoria Aveyard also begins to experiment with changing points of view later in the series, which shows the benefits of using changing POV to show different sides to a story.
I picked up the first novel in this series, Red Queen, a while ago and postponed reading it until about a week before I would be at a signing event that Victoria Aveyard was attending. My goal was to read all three of the current books before I met the author. The first book was really good. It paints a dystopian society in which the government is run by silver bloods- people with silver blood who wield special powers. These people use the red bloods- people like you and me with no special powers- are disadvantaged in society, acting as slaves to the silvers or being forced to die in war against another society. The book really starts a few chapters in when the main character, Mare, finds out that she is not exactly a red blood- she is something new altogether. So marks the turning point in the novel and in society; how can a society stand when the oppressed begin to rebel, and when all they consider to be true is discovered to be incomplete? Without giving too many spoilers, all I can really say is that this series is really good and well worth the read; especially for fans of novels like The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and Cinder by Marissa Meyer.The next two novels continue from this point; what is happening to society, what does Mare do to help the reds and the silvers, will she survive, and who might betray her? The novels work their way towards either the downfall of a nation or a change in how it is run... we still don't know what will happen!
To give this series a rating (for the three books that are out so far), I have to give the series a solid 4.5. The series is really good and keeps you involved in the action, however after a certain point the reader just starts to get mad at all of the plot twists. Another point of detraction is that the books suddenly switched points of view halfway through the series. Although I understand why the author decided to start using this device to show what was happening when characters were no longer in the same place as each other, I still felt that it was sudden and kind of annoying. Other than that, you have to love dystopian books- especially those with unforeseen plot twists!
I had a really hard time deciding what kind of food I was going to relate this book to- but, with the help of another Victoria Aveyard fan, we decided that the best food metaphor would be a box of assorted truffles from a really good brand, like Godiva. Every truffle you bite into is different and you don't know what kind of filling it will have; the one box of chocolates will just keep surprising you, like how this series keeps surprising the reader. The high quality of the book would put it on par with higher- but not really high - quality chocolates, because it is really good but not quite good enough that it has all-organic ingredients and came from another country. In general, it is the kind of gift that keeps on giving and can be truly enjoyable- just like a box of chocolates.If you want to read this book series (trust me, you do!) then you can check out the author at https://www.victoriaaveyard.com/. This series is so good that I actually ended up driving through a rainstorm just to get the third book!!!
~Lucy
