From the Bookshelf of The Perks Of Being A Book Addict…

Red Queen (Red Queen, #1)

Victoria Aveyard

Start date: February 1, 2018

Finish date: February 28, 2018

Discussion: Group Books of the Month (BotM)

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What Members Thought

Sep 15, 2014 Kathylill rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: young-adult, 2015

Basically, this book is just an overhyped, formulaic Young Adult Dystopia, without any depth either to world building (history, magic, political system) nor characters. It’s fluffy, light and in the end quite boring. It could have been amazing. It wasn’t.

Some of my friends have stated that Red Queen is in fact just a copycat of Red Rising by Pierce Brown. I don’t quite get that apart from the title (both feature the adjective “Red”) and the system, which is made up by Red Blood vs Silver Blood Basically, this book is just an overhyped, formulaic Young Adult Dystopia, without any depth either to world building (history, magic, political system) nor characters. It’s fluffy, light and in the end quite boring. It could have been amazing. It wasn’t.

Some of my friends have stated that Red Queen is in fact just a copycat of Red Rising by Pierce Brown. I don’t quite get that apart from the title (both feature the adjective “Red”) and the system, which is made up by Red Blood vs Silver Blood (in Red Queen) and Reds vs Gold/Silver/Pinks/Greys/etc in Red Rising. It’s really different in every other way (I mean come on I gave Red Rising a 5-Star rating).

So for me the world was different enough to warrant an objective rating and not one based on my hate for uninspired, overhyped fanfic. In Red Queen we're introduced to a dystopian fantasy-world that had potential in the beginning: Mutants X-Men style (the Silver-Blooded) vs. ‘normal’ slaves (the Red-Blooded). But the interesting concept of a dystopian world sadly remained limited and unexplored. In the end it features the same old YA-trope of "question the authority", exposing the lies imposed by the society (only adults can live meekly accepting of a totalitarian regime) and standing up against those in power (because of course only teens have a unique access to the Truth), by having combat-training as a coming-of-age ritual. I wonder sometimes if the number of children learning jiu jitsu has somewhat increased in the last 10 years? In this line of thought Red Queen was a mishmash of Shatter Me, The Hunger Games, Divergent, Graceling and every other YA fantasy/dystopian novel out there, but with too much The Selection thrown into the mix.

I kind of did like The Selection, don’t get me wrong. But Red Queen was plainly an unoriginal copy of The Selection put in a different, but same-same-but-different world. My problem with this kind of YA books is simply that they don’t give a sh** about world-building (revolutionary movements, political undercurrents, religious motivations) but instead focus too much time on playing out the never-changing Teen-Angst and Love-at-first-sight-melodrama. Why bother constructing a dystopian world at all when all you do is focus your attention on “He-likes-me-he-likes-me-not”?

I might have given it one more star, were it not for the love triangle (which was just annoying) and the obvious use of other YA tropes like Queen Bee (Evangeline) vs. Miss Innocent and Pure (Mare).
...more

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Apr 23, 2018 Tetty Marlinda rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy-is-a-magic, english-books, 2018, floppy, owned-book, 2016-tbr

#52 for 2018
Genre: Fantasy

2 likes · Like · see review

Jun 28, 2015 Keri rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: owned, series-in-progress

Reread May 2020
Well I’m really disappointed I didn’t review this the first time I read it. I would’ve liked to read my thoughts then and compare.
I’m going to stick with the original 5 star rating, but having read more in this genre from the point I first read this, I may have given it a 4 now (view spoiler).
But I also may think that because I knew the twists, and things from further books already this time.
Anyway, I liked the charact ...more

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May 13, 2022 K. O'Brien rated it it was amazing

Jane Austen honed my character instincts. Taught me red flags to key in on. So my intuition is typically good. But this book. Red flags were everywhere and I couldn’t figure out who to trust. I questioned my instincts right up until the end. Very well done. Can’t wait to read the next one.

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