Red Queen (Red Queen 1) by Victoria Aveyard

Mare Barrow’s world is divided by blood–those with common, Red blood serve the Silver- blooded elite, who are gifted with superhuman abilities. Mare is a Red, scraping by as a thief in a poor, rural village, until a twist of fate throws her in front of the Silver court. Before the king, princes, and all the nobles, she discovers she has an ability of her own.

To cover up this impossibility, the king forces her to play the role of a lost Silver princess and betroths her to one of his own sons. As Mare is drawn further into the Silver world, she risks everything and uses her new position to help the Scarlet Guard–a growing Red rebellion–even as her heart tugs her in an impossible direction. One wrong move can lead to her death, but in the dangerous game she plays, the only certainty is betrayal. (Goodreads)

In Mare Barrow’s world there’s two kinds of people: those who has Red Blood and those who have Silver Blood. Those with Silver blood are “better” people and have magical gifts while those with Red blood do not have any gifts and are more on the poor side. Those Reds who turn 18 and don’t have a job, are sent into army on the war front.

One night Mare meets a stranger who arranges a job for her in the court. There she discovers she has powers while it’s unheard for a Red to have one and Silvers hatch a plan so the world won’t discover the news.

There was huge hype for this some time ago so I was little nervous to start this and I have to say that I have mixed feelings about this. I liked the idea of Silvers and Reds but I just didn’t connect with the characters enough. There wasn’t any chemistry between Mare and Cal, or Mare and Maven. I kinda liked Cal alone but with Mare there was no sparks flying.

I liked the end but otherwise it was little slow and especially in the middle it dragged too much.

And our heroine Mare… The first problem I have is with her name. First thing that comes to mind is a (female) horse. Second thing is brood mare. Can you see a theme here? Every time I read her name I wondered if we would start talking about horses. So distracting…
She’s just so naïve it’s a wonder how she has survived this long. She tells us how good she is reading people and that she’s no one’s fool. Umm yeah… I don’t know how many times I wanted to shake some sense into her.

But as I said I liked the end, which saved the book for me and earned the third star. So it wasn’t all bad.

3/5

Published: Harper Teen (2015)
Format: paperback
Pages: 388
Source: library