And it was a journey, let me tell you.
In my full review for Red Queen, I ended up giving the book three stars, because I decided I did want to know what happened next. So let's do a quick run down of the next books.
Glass Sword ★★
The characters that kept me reading Red Queen, I am afraid, may have been the Glass Sword's downfall. It took right until the end of the book for me to actually get behind Mare as she is really quite un-likeable, it was Shade's plot twist that really made me get behind the characters and that is very much at the end of the book.
As for the story, good lord it takes a bit of time to get through, so many people, places, locations and yet somehow it really is hard to picture and takes a long time. There were definitely times I wanted to give up, I even wrote a blog posts (unpublished) asking for opinions on whether you give up on a book you're not enjoying, but kind of want to know what happens.
But I stuck with it, and although this whole book feels like it could be a lot shorter and get through the first 85% a lot quicker.
That ending.
The ended had me driving to The Trafford Centre at stupid o'clock to pick up...
King's Cage ★★ and a half
King's Cage again suffered from far too much description in between each point of action, making the book feel more drawn out than necessary. I definitely enjoyed King's Cage more than Glass Sword, and thought that having Mare captured by Maven definitely made for interesting reading and an interesting dynamic between the two of them, when those scenes happened few and far between.
The punishment on the whole left me wanting, Maven is created as this utterly masochistic character, yet her only punishment seemed to be silent stone, and Maven, more or less, left her alone.
The premise of this book had me really excited, but I am afraid it didn't quite deliver on the scale I was hoping for. I did find myself reading this book far faster for Mare's inevitable escape, and I really did enjoy the dynamic between her and Cal that was being developed, but I still had a really hard time empathising with some of the choices Mare made, particularly when it came to her family.
With so much potential, and overall a fairly OK read, it's ★★ and a half.
War Storm ★★★
War Storm is definitely a book of two halves. Well, maybe three-quarters and a quarter. The last part of the book is page turning, fast, action-packed and I enjoyed it immensely. The culmination of the books means that the story does feel more exciting than the previous two, we know there is going to be a conclusion one way or another and...
I actually really loved the ending, I won't spoil anything but I thought that it was a really interesting way to finish the book and leave some interpretation to the reader (even if it left me a tiny bit frustrated at the same time).
There was also a part of me that was a tiny bit disappointed in the level of storm Mare could conjure. Now, I know conjuring lightning cannot be easy, but after all she had been through, in the final battle, I wanted no-mercy look-at-how-badass-Mare-is storms, but they never really came. It must have been a choice to keep her on a more level playing field with abilities but after the way she discovered them, I just wanted a little bit more.
I did like the multiple points of view, I know they have received mixed reviews online, sometimes it did feel distracting, but boy did it keep me page turning to get back to the point of view I was interested in. I also thought it was interesting to read from Maven's point of view.
The Red Queen Series ★★★
Well bookish people, we made it, I finished War Storm and the full series. If I had to come down on a side, as this is perhaps the most ambivalent I have been over a book in a while, I would say I am happy that I have read it, which is the reasoning for the three stars, but there were times when it definitely feel like a slog.
Overall, I cannot help but wonder what book we would have read had Maven been who he said he was, and Cal ended up being the tyrannical, murderous king.
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