Ranting: Red Queen series by Victoria Aveyard

Warning: This post will contain spoilers. Please read the following text at your expense and risk.

A few months ago I finished Glass Sword by Kiera Aveyard. The book is the second one of The Red Queen series.

After a long period of reflection (because sometimes I can’t create an opinion just after finishing the book) I still don’t know if I liked the book that much.

Once I was searching through the internet and I started to read about Red Queen. People were talking about the book and after I read the synopsis I thought the premise was interesting. It was time to bought it.

However, as soon as I finished Red Queen I knew I didn’t hate it, but… Did I love it? I don’t know… I assume I had a good time reading it and the end was what I liked the most. I was excited about how it turned out to be (I’m crazy, I know!) but I wasn’t going bananas to read the second book. I still had to think about it.

Then the second book was given to me and I thought: “Maybe it’s time to read it!”. So, I took it and… I got bored. I’m not the type of person who re-reads the previous book before getting to read the following.

Shame on me. Right.

When I love a book it’s hard for me to forget much about it. Some details are gone, true, but the most important parts and characters remain on my memory. Unfortunately, when I picked up Glass Sword it took me some time to remember some important plots that took place previously.

I was told that the second book wasn’t as good as the first. I tried to ignore it as I got deeper into the book. I don’t know if it’s better or worse than Red Queen, but I do know that I didn’t enjoy Glass Sword as much as I enjoyed the previous one.

Why?

First: Kilorn Warren.

I don’t like him. I’m sorry if you do. Please don’t be mad. You should love who you want. I, on the other hand, am annoyed by him. I could say that he adds nothing to the story, but that’s not completely true. If it weren’t him, Mare would have never gone to the castle in the first place. Also, I found his love declaration to Mare a bit irrelevant, since it is quickly forgotten.

Second: Mare and her instability.

Mare is a character that sometimes has lack of coherence. I assume that it must be related with the things that happened to her, but It is something that upsets me a little.

Third: The plot/action.

In Red Queen I thought that the book had more variety when we are talking about the pace of the action. The book had me feeling like I was in a rollercoaster of events, in comparison with Glass Sword, in which the action was around the same thing.

Fourth: Shade.

No, I don’t hate this character. It’s one of my favorites to be honest. I noticed that at certain point, he is left behind by his team. He was injured back then and was caught and supposedly beaten up. Mare was so sad that her brother died in a war before she realized that he was alive, but anyway she agreed on leaving him behind… I understand that herself couldn’t afford to get caught, but… Well, dilemmas. However, Victoria Aveyard found a way for him to get out of that mess without having him severely injured… only to kill him a couple of chapters later. To me it seemed like the author was ready to kill him but in the last minute changed her mind, only to kill him later.

Overall, the Red Queen’s series is not one that leaves me on the edge of my seat or that makes me hyped, but it’s not bad at all! The endings are my favorite part of her books and that’s why I want to keep reading then even though I’m not really that excited for following books.~

What are your opinions? Should I keep reading the series? Does it get better?

XOXO,