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.