Title: Glass Sword [Red Queen 2]
Author: Victoria Aveyard
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Length: 440
Rating: 4 Star
Description/Synopsis:
If there’s one thing Mare Barrow knows, it’s that she’s different.
Mare Barrow’s blood is red—the color of common folk—but her Silver ability, the power to control lightning, has turned her into a weapon that the royal court tries to control.
The crown calls her an impossibility, a fake, but as she makes her escape from Maven, the prince—the friend—who betrayed her, Mare uncovers something startling: she is not the only one of her kind.
Pursued by Maven, now a vindictive king, Mare sets out to find and recruit other Red-and-Silver fighters to join in the struggle against her oppressors.
But Mare finds herself on a deadly path, at risk of becoming exactly the kind of monster she is trying to defeat.
Will she shatter under the weight of the lives that are the cost of rebellion? Or have treachery and betrayal hardened her forever?
The electrifying next installment in the Red Queen series escalates the struggle between the growing rebel army and the blood-segregated world they’ve always known—and pits Mare against the darkness that has grown in her soul.
Review – MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
I really enjoyed this story. Not as much as the first but it was still very enjoyable.
If I am a sword, I am a sword made of glass, and I feel myself beginning to shatter.
In this one Mare sets off to hunt down and save the other ‘new bloods’ as she started calling them. Plot wise this kept me entertained for awhile. She won some, she lost some, and the first few were interesting. This part of the story dragged a little bit for me though so I was glad when it started to move on. I don’t think this book was really supposed to be plot based for the most part. Obviously things do happen or it would be pointless but I think this one was more about character development and the introduction of all the new bloods that are going to hold key points in the story later on.
Oh Mare. I love you, but you tested my patience a bit. There were times in this book I just wanted to shake her because it seems as though as she just hadn’t really learnt anything from anything that happened on the previous book. I get the struggles she was going through, I really do. I also think that there was a lot of the ‘Mare is so evil’ agenda being pushed in our faces again, through fights that seemed a bit pointless and even her own thoughts. But for the love of god, its the same thing that gets her every single time. I am glad she at least she acknowledged just how dumb she was at these moments. I truly hated her a little though when it came to her first interaction with Cam. I just straight up hated Cam though so I can forgive her for it. . . I guess. There was also a part where she killed people who were surrendering that made me sad for the way she was turning.
No one is born a monster. But I wish some people were. It would make it easier to hate them, to kill them, to forget their dead faces.
I really liked the way the new characters changed all the interactions between our old characters, and some of them stood out in their own right as well. Be it because I hated or loved them it didn’t really matter. Shade is by far my favorite side character I think. He is just a lovely person always trying to do his best and he really knew how to speak to Mare when she was taking things too far or being stupid. I really liked his and Farley’s relationship too. I didn’t find Farley very interesting going into this book but I liked the things we learnt about her in this book, it gave her more depth and made her interesting and I want more on her. Kilorn just made me angry most of the book.
SPOILER – Maven popped up in this book more than I expected. I hate him and wish he would die but his popping up certainly kept parts of this book from becoming dull. The first time we see him again and he attacks Mare with the sounder device that pretty much turned her own electricity against her and burnt her up from the inside out was both amazing and horrifying. I was so scared for her and I could almost feel her pain, but I felt so bad for all the people around her who had to watch this happen and then have her beg for death before basically going into a coma for awhile. END SPOILER
The most boring character development person was probably Cal. I feel so bad for him though. He just lost his whole family and his kingdom, the thing he was raised to rule and look after. I think he is completely wrong in thinking its not worth starting a war over change, but he is just stuck between a rock and a hard place. Without turning his back on people who can’t really move on. He has to decide to kill the silver people he loves, or turn against the girl he loves and be an enemy of the people he is staying with. I would probably be just as annoying and mopey if I were in his place. His and Mares relationship annoyed me a bit in this book, the least the both of them could do is decided on their feelings for each other. And Maven. So frustrating to read.
“I’m starting to think you like prisons,” he says, idling knocking his knuckles against the wall. “And that you have the worst taste in men.”
I think I am going to leave this review here. I know it was sort of just a character check in, and it wasn’t even every character, but I cannot really talk about the plot for this one. There are still some unoriginal things going through this book, and to me is seemed slower than the other book. There are things that happen scattered throughout the book, some that make me happy, some that make my heart hurt, but they are all hugely spoilery so I can’t go into them at all. If you liked the first book I think you will like this one and it is definitely worth picking up this book!
Till Next Time. . .
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