Red Queen has everything that I should ever want in a book and I waited till the hype was over, but I was still disappointed. I enjoyed this book, but I think for the wrong reasons. I wanted to see how many tropes I could find and I found a lot. I noted all the similar themes and events I found in other ya titles. I wanted Mare to suffer and her allies to die. I laughed at Mare a lot because most of the time she thought she was the smartest person in the room, but she was the dumbest. Being in Mare's head and in her wishy-washy feelings/thoughts all the time was unbearable. The second thing I hated was the romance(s). Mare had three people interested in her. Why?? I don't even know. Kilron is a pre-page love interest that I cared nothing about and I actually wanted him to die. Cal was interesting but I didn't like how Mare met her and their relationship came from left field. There was no build-up to anything that happened between them for her to be torn or think that he would risk his kingdom for her.And it was dumb on Mare's part to believe that he would. On the other hand, Maven is my absolute favorite. I usually don't root for the villain in stories, but I loved Maven because he was so calculated. He had a goal and he would do anything to achieve and I liked that. I really want Maven to come out on top. I want him to be an evil King and get Mare. He had some of the best lines toward the end that had me laughing at Mare and how stupid she was. The whole war was interesting but confusing along with how people got their abilities. The one bright spot in this was Victoria's writing. Her writing is captivating most of the time(80%) and she written some of the best action sequences I have ever read. The dialogue was a hit or a miss. Sometimes, I thought she was trying to hard to be epic. As whole, Red Queen was predictable, but I want to see where it is going. 2.5 stars for Maven.

Actually I never trusted Maven, because it's obvious for me to he's his mother's son. I mean, he's jealous his brother Cal, he's jealous about his father how he's not notice him and he always thinks that Cal always a step ahead of him so he wants to beat him at once. So when Maven saw how his brother Cal saved Mare and take care of her and never said 'No' to her, even she wanted to see her family he take her to them.

Looking forward to number 2

Fun read! No wasting time getting to the action and lots of plot to work with. I appreciate when books don't try to stretch one piece of the story too long. Excited to start the second one.

I rarely rate so low but the book felt like a mix of political schems, a heroine who lied AL THE TIME and a plot way to spread for the book...

Lack of intimacy haults emotional attachment. Betrayal and twists fell flat.

First of all, Victoria, this was incredibly rude of you. Second of all, thank you.