Glass Sword (Red Queen #2) by Victoria Aveyard

RATING: 🌕🌕🌕🌘🌑

Publisher: HarperTeen

Publication Date: February 9, 2016

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 444

“It isn’t hard to let people die when their deaths give life to something else.”

 

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:

I have a very high expectation towards this book considering the ending of the first one. After that plot twist that Victoria Aveyard pulled off, I expected more. Red Queen was a very strong first book. And this book disappoints me. Half of the book was too slow, disregarding how much I hate Mare at some point, I feel like the plot lacks something that the Red Queen offers. The heart racing kick-ass story with all the politics and plot twist are gone. Half of the story revolves around recruiting the newbloods and it is kinda boring.

I’ve been dreading every chapter because I’ve been waiting for Victoria Aveyard’s plot twist or heartbreaking revelation but there is none! I feel like I’ve seen more character development with the other characters other than Mare. Some monolog seems too repetitive. It reminds me of Katniss in the Mockingjay. However, I am torn between Mare’s thoughts as a form of trauma or selfishness that has been driven by her anger. I cannot fully relate to her and I cannot comprehend what her mind wants. It feels like a mess. Her thoughts are everywhere. It seems on point at one moment then the next feels so wrong. I can more or less relate to Cal than to her. I no longer see the drive that she once has in the Red Queen. There isn’t a solid plan and if there is, the planning seems too weak. I have to thank Cal for voicing out my every thought, for saying the words that I wish to drill in Mare’s mind. Hence contemplating at it now, I wonder if Victoria Aveyard wants us to feel this way towards Mare considering that she can see the flaw and the weakness of Mare’s character in some scenes.

Overall, I enjoyed it but I’ll say it again, I expected more from this book. I wish the 3rd book wouldn’t disappoint this much.

Too disappointing but I still recommend this series. It is still enjoyable although it is quite slow and not that mind blowing.