Review: Red Queen

Red Queen Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"I grew up wondering if I'd have food for supper; now I'm standing in a place about to be eaten alive." -Mare.

Mare is a Red. Red, as in the color of her blood. In Mare's world, there are Reds and Silvers. Silvers do have silver blood, but they also have special abilities or supernatural powers that make them the ruling class over the Reds. The Reds are the serving class, going to war for the Silvers in addition to being the workers who make the Silvers' clothing and exist generally to better the lives of the Silvers. They are nearly a slave class while the Silvers either are royals or seem to live like royals.

Mare knows she is going to be sent off to war (she will be conscripted, as she calls it), like her older brothers. Her younger sister, Gisa, is an apprentice to a clothes-maker, so she will be able to avoid going to the war. Mare is envious of her sister and her safer path. Mare's best friend Kilorn is also to be conscripted. When Mare tries to save Kilorn from conscription, things don't go according to her plan and a course of events that changes what she knows about herself and her world and sets her on a new course in life.

I liked Red Queen, possibly enough to read its sequels eventually. I didn't love it enough to pick up the next book immediately (The Glass Sword), but the book ends in such a way that the reader is left wanting more. A reader of Young Adult fiction who enjoys the fantasy genre will likely love this book. It has a taste of dystopian fiction, though the world is so fantastical and different from our own. This is in contrast to the Divergent series, which is a dystopian novel based on the future of our current reality.

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