The world is divided by blood - red or silver.
The Reds are commoners, ruled by a Silver elite in possession of god-like superpowers. And to Mare Barrow, a seventeen-year-old Red girl from the poverty-stricken Stilts, discovers that, despite her red blood, she possesses a deadly power of her own. One that threatens to destroy the balance of power.
Intrigued? I was.
Coupled with the fact that I seemed to be seeing this book all over Instagram, I headed over to Waterstones and grabbed myself a copy.
I must admit, before reading this book I had seen Emily May's review on Goodreads (which is less than glowing), so my expectations were a bit all over the place.
Let me start by saying this book is a slow burner, it seems to take a long time for anything to happen and I honestly feel like things could have happened a little bit quicker, but I suppose the theory was character building, so let's talk about characters shall we?
The characters individually were one of the main things that kept my reading the book, I was interested in their different motivations, powers and following Mare was enjoyable for me. However, I really struggled through the book to believe the relationships between the characters, Mare seems to have all the boys falling at her feet for no reason I could quite figure out. I started to invest in the relationship between Mare and Maven, but I felt like I knew what was coming there (as much as I didn't want it to happen).
Cal had the potential, but what happened with the dancing (trying to keep as spoiler free as possible) felt like it honestly came (a bit) out of nowhere, there was no real build up and I was left feeling a bit confused. Now they have some tension, I am beginning to invest in their relationship a little bit more.
Kilhorn, again, it's like we are just supposed to accept that they are besties and will constantly protect each other, but we are taken away from him so quickly at the beginning, I don't feel like we see enough evidence of that before we are expected to just believe it.
The revolution takes a bit of a back seat in the Red Queen, which is what I am hoping comes out in the next three (three!) books. I am going to purchase Glass Sword, give it a go and see if there is a bit more story to come out now we know the characters.
I am really hoping Red Queen is like the first episode of a TV series, lots of background and building so we can get into the good stuff in the coming weeks, so due to the fact that I read to the end, and I definitely want to give the next book a try, ★★★.
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