All Hail The Queen

I can officially say I have finished the next big obsession:

The Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

 

Okay, so popular books covered in fawning fanboys and fangirls can go one of two ways.  They either get waaaay too much popularity too quickly without the quality to back it up, or they grow because every person who reads this book recognizes it for what it is: beautiful.

I'm very glad to say, as far as I'm concerned, this book falls under the second category.

For anyone in the book world who's been living under a rock, here's the official synopsis:

     Graceling meets The Selection in debut novelist Victoria Aveyard's sweeping tale of seventeen-year-old Mare, a common girl whose once-latent magical power draws her into the dangerous intrigue of the king's palace. Will her power save her or condemn her?
     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.

As a lover of Graceling, I was excited.  As someone who was so annoyed by America's narration in The Selection, I was wary.  Yet I decided to give it a try.  And I'm 100% happy I did.

I can't say much about the ending of this book without giving anything away, but I can say I TOTALLY called it.  Like, everything.  That doesn't mean it can't be filled with plot twists or shocks for the average reader, but I naturally suspect everyone of ulterior motives, and it makes me figure out mysteries way too soon.  I think I got it from my father...

Basically, Mare Molly Barrow is a Red, living in a fishing village ten miles from the vacation home of royalty.  Her life sucks, and she's just biding time until she turns eighteen and is conscripted into the hundred year war her country has been fighting.  Her three older brothers are already fighting in it, but until she joins them, she steals to feed her family, which consists of her mother, disabled, war-veteran father, and younger sister Gisa, who is the one child who it seems won't be conscripted, because she has a job as a seamstress.

The catalyst of everything is Kilorn.  When his Master dies, leaving him without an apprenticeship and an upcoming conscription notice, Mare takes it upon herself to save him as she has multiple times in the past.  This leads her to the Scarlet Guard, though she doesn't know it yet, and everything that happens next is because of her choice to save those she loves.  When she, in another turn of events, becomes a servant during a festival for the royals, unwittingly gets pushed into an electric shield, and realizes she can control to power coursing through her, her life changes forever.  What begins as a cover up leads to her involvement in a deadly game, one she won't know she's playing (is in fact a pawn in) until it's too late.

This book sets up an amazing battle for their world that will be played out in the next two books.  I'm looking forward to seeing what Victoria Aveyard has planned for Mare next.

While this book has similar dystopian themes to the Hunger Games trilogy, such as an oppressive government and a rebellion that's ready to take off, the main difference for me was Mare's narration.  It wasn't half as whiny as Katniss could be, and her naiveté is based around lack of education and the lack of knowledge in new surroundings.  She never let that stop her, either, and while she relies on people, she doesn't fall apart completely as soon as they're gone.

As long as she continues to grow from the person she was, and as long as she continues to learn the game she's playing, I think this series could be something special.

So read it now, folks.  If you wait until this becomes the NEXT BIG THING, don't come crying to me and complaining about waiting a month for the next book to come out (you know who you are, Mockingjay-band-wagoners; you're lucky my restraint is greater than my annoyance).  This series has a lot of possibility.  I look forward to seeing what comes next.

*And don't think you guys got out of that pun so easily*