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Red Queen (Red Queen, #1)

Victoria Aveyard

Start date: July 12, 2015

Finish date: July 31, 2015

Discussion: Books of the Month

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What Members Thought

Feb 05, 2017 Cindy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017

I put off reading this for a while, assuming that it would be just another Hunger Games/Divergent/Matched/Selection, etc etc. But I was pleasantly surprised. Of course there is the obligatory YA love triangle that is (hey authors, pay attention here) getting a weensy bit tiresome, but overall, I'm looking forward to getting started on the second book in the series shortly. (Though I suppose it's not really feasible to get rid of love triangles altogether since they provide so much angsty motivat ...more

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Sep 05, 2017 Heather - hturningpages rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: that-cover-though, i-really-tried-to-like-this, sorry-i-got-bored

My god this was hard to get through. To be fair, I would give the plot 7/10 and the creative premise and interesting world building a 7.5/10, but the writing! Was. So. Bad.

Here are the major things that bugged me:
-So much telling rather than showing, or often doing both.
Have faith in the intelligence of your reader!! If you say your MC is crying, WE GET IT THAT SHE IS ALSO SAD, YOU DON'T HAVE TO TELL US A MILLION TIMES.

-A roller coaster of emotions.
I can put up with lots of emotions, hey I re My god this was hard to get through. To be fair, I would give the plot 7/10 and the creative premise and interesting world building a 7.5/10, but the writing! Was. So. Bad.

Here are the major things that bugged me:
-So much telling rather than showing, or often doing both.
Have faith in the intelligence of your reader!! If you say your MC is crying, WE GET IT THAT SHE IS ALSO SAD, YOU DON'T HAVE TO TELL US A MILLION TIMES.

-A roller coaster of emotions.
I can put up with lots of emotions, hey I read YA after all, I get it lol but JESUS Mare needs to get her shit together. One minute she is in love with a character and then in the next paragraph she's all I HATE YOU WITH THE FIRE OF A THOUSAND SUNS. I literally cannot keep up, I have severe emotional whiplash right now. Also, just a thought, less is more!! It is okay to be subtle and to build tension and development of characters over time! Sheesh.

-ALLLLL the characters are in love with the MC.
I mean. Come. On. I think I could make the case that every single character in this book is either in love with, or jealous of Mare. Seriously. *eeyyyeee roollllll*

-YA tropes left and right.
If the above doesn't convince you let me add a bit more on that here.
Premise: A girl from a very poor "sector" ahem, part of the country, sacrifices herself to save her "sister" ahem, sister and rest of her family, and leaves the boy she grew up with and loves dearly behind to go behind enemy lines, all the while fueling a rebellion with "Gale", sorry, said childhood friend. lol Remind you Hunger Games much??

I get that a lot of YA has a similar formula. Hell, Ever the Hunted by Erin Summerill had almost the exact same premise, but you know what? I LOVED THAT BOOK! Somehow the writing in that book made me forget I was reading something tropey, because the writing was beautiful and the characters were well thought out and the writer didn't treat the reader like a child. So moral of the story, you could have a cool premise with all the powers and plot twists but if your characters don't make sense and do silly things then I just can't, sorry not sorry lol

Rant over :P ...more

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Aug 31, 2015 Amanda rated it really liked it

Shelves: young-adult, 4-stars

I was so very pleased to pick this book up after deciding to leave off on The Scorch Trials right in the middle of itself. I very much ended up liking this book, even though I did figure out the hard, surprise twist by about 50-75% of book, because in my head there was only one big betrayal that could happen to the character that would derail where the novel had been leading.

I do like the stratification displayed in both the Reds, and then the slow revealing of it in the Silvers. I'm curious ab ...more

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