Book Review: War Storm (Red Queen #4) by Victoria Aveyard

War Storm by Victoria Aveyard
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

War Storm by Victoria Aveyard was SO GOOD. I got scared for a moment that I really wasn’t going to enjoy it, but I did. I really loved the fact that it had multiple POVs, Cal was in his Mariah Carey/Toni Braxton/Bill Withers era when it came to Mare, because he kept looking at her and wanting her when he’s the new king, and it's like the Samos family and his grandmother are forcing him to marry Evangeline, who really doesn’t want to get married. All Evangeline wants is for her and Elane to be alone somewhere, far away so no one knows them. But I really enjoyed this book, even though I didn’t like some things.

The one big thing I didn’t like was Maven’s death. I felt like this was kinda not satisfying than Volo Samos’s. His was satisfying because Julian sang him to his death. Maven just ran around like a little bitch and goating Mare to kill him. Then when she does get near him, he chokes her half to death, and then when she stabs him (I think), he just…dies. I mean, yeah, because of the Silent Stone it would’ve gone differently if it didn’t end the way that it did.

Throughout the book, I was oddly cheering Evangeline on. I wanted this girl to have to happy ending SO BAD that I’m sitting here upset that she can’t get that happy ending because of what she had to do as a princess when all she wants to do is run off with Elane and be herself. When she finally realized that she could live the life she wants when she went to Monfort to see how Davidson lived with his husband without hiding her true self or anything, she started to want it, to crave it. At the end, she decided to run away once her parents tried to kill her (which was bullshit, by the way) and I hope she and Elara are living happily ever after.

Now Cal…Tiberias the Seventh, the True Flame of the North…this boy was going through his GoT type crap along with his Mariah Carey/Toni Braxton/’I must listen to every sad boi music because I miss Mare’ era. Like…he was still feein’ for this girl after he chose his crown over her. Then I felt like he was going through what his grandmother wanted when I don’t think he really wanted to do it. He shot her down with the idea that he must plant his flag in Delphie or wherever she wanted him to make capital, and he didn’t do it. Then he and Mare spent the night together, but after that one night, he didn’t talk to her until the Lakelander War and when the Lakelanders attacked. But Evangeline, before she ran off, told him that he can get his happy ending if she could too. In the end, he and Mare decided to be apart, to see what she wanted and what he wanted, and when they’re ready, they’re ready.

Iris’s point of view was pretty interesting. Reading hers was very interesting, from trying to manipulate Maven, getting Bracken’s children from Monfort, and even going home and working with her mother and sister to try and attack Norta and take it from Maven and Cal. Sadly, Maven kinda comparing her to a dog pee’d me off, but at the same time, she took it with pride when I wanted to pimp-slap the shit out of him. Then when she tricked Maven and gave him to his brother, I cheered. I really liked Iris-just that I hope she had a nice day.

And Mare…I just want Mare to be happy. I want Mare to live her best life and never let anyone get on her nerves. But after reading her chapters, that’s all she needs, in my opinion. She loves Cal so much, but at the same time, she wants to find Maven and punish him for everything he’d ever done. She wants to stay with her family, who moved from Piedmont to Monfort, I believe, but she keeps on moving. She almost lost Kilorn one time during an attack on one of the Tech Towns but thank god for Sara Skonos and her healing him. I was worried for Kilorn for a minute when that happened, but he’s good now, even though at the end I thought something really bad happened to him. But he was fine, and I really liked Tyton-he looks and feels like a silver-haired anime character, which was funny, and I got worried when she went after Maven one final time.

I really enjoyed this book so much, it’s a new favorite series and I would re-read it over and over again.

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Book Review: King's Cage (Red Queen #3) by Victoria Aveyard

King's Cage by Victoria Aveyard
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

May has been busy, but I’m finally reading like crazy now. King’s Cage was the first book I finished in May, and OH MY GOD…it hurt. It was an enjoyable ride, I hated Maven with all my heart, and I was not expecting the multiple POVs of Mare, Cameron, and Evangeline. In fact, Evangeline’s POV surprised me. I never really liked Evangeline, but the more I read her POV, the more I started to like her.

The book starts with Mare being a prisoner of the boy king, Maven Calore after she turned herself in after her brother Shade’s death. She couldn’t get in contact with her lightning because of the silent stone, her manacles, and her guards, which were Avrens. She did everything Maven told her to do, even though she hated every single minute of it. She had to give a speech, twisting the lies of the Scarlet Guard and painting them as terrorists, and was known as the leader of the Scarlet Guard. She was interrogated so badly by a man named Samson Merandus that she relived Shade’s death repeatedly.

After that terrible interrogation, Mare wakes up to find Maven over her. Sadly, even though I wish he didn’t, Maven still has feeling for her, and he forces her to give a speech about the Scarlet Guard, and also Maven gave all newbloods sanctuary from the Scarlet Guard. He forces Mare to experience all of this, and she hated every minute of it.

In this book, we learn more about Maven and Elara, and how Elara manipulated Maven so well in his mind that it makes me wonder if he ever had any emotions at all/ And the more he forced Mare to watch all of the newborns pledge their allegiance to him, the angrier she got, even though she couldn’t do anything. Then during a wedding between Maven and the Lakelader Irs Cygnet, the Scarlet Guard attacked to save Mare.

Mare was freed by Evangeline Samos, who was tired of her being in nice and simple imprisonment, so once she was freed, Mare left with the Scarlet Guard and reunited with everyone, including Cal. When they started moving against Maven and his enemies, that’s when things were coming out of the woodwork.

This leads me to Cameron’s POV. Cameron wants to save her brother Morrey so hard from the Red War camp. She keeps asking Colonel Farley and Diana Farley, but they said no, until Farley, while pregnant, comes up with a plan to break in the Choke I think, and get her brother back. They do, but thanks to Maven’s televised speech, Morrey, along with the rest of the Reds and newbloods, think that the Scarlet Guard are terrorists. But after some convincing, I think Morrey agrees. Also, she’s very suspicious about Cal and what he was doing behind doors (I was too).

Evangeline’s point of view was very…her. Her father wants to become a kingdom, breaking apart from Norta and wants to become Queen. Evangeline just wants to be with her girlfriend while she’s married to her brother. But things don’t go as planned as Evangeline thought, because with the meeting with the Scarlet Guard, her father, and Queen Anabel Leloran said that Cal and Evangeline to be married, and for Cal to take the throne. Mare left and Cal followed her, and Mare told Cal not to do it…but he didn’t say it back. So Mare turned around and left, leaving me to finally finish this series with War Storm. I’m enjoying this series so much and it’s one of my favorites.

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Book Review: Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard

Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book felt like a really old 80s action movie, starring Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Segal, or like the Expendables, but you add in the Game of Thrones bit and the powers, then that’s Glass Sword. I felt like in this book Mare was Sylvester’s character Barney in the Expendables 3, trying to come up with a team to take down Maven (in which I was curse him out at the end of this review). She does have Cal, and yes, she does get with him, but at the end it didn’t end well with them. Surprisingly, this time in this book we have Shade, Mare’s brother, but she kinda…I wanna say treat him like crap before he was killed, but at least she treated him like a brother at the end.

What Maven did at Chapter Nineteen pissed me off to high heaven for MANY reasons. One of them was that after what he did, he kept leaving messages for her to find, which I found very creepy (but at the same time, kinda gave me ideas for no good reason) and then as they try and find people to recruit, they didn’t find much because of Maven. Then they went to break into a jail, and, well.. THAT didn’t end well, for many reasons why.

One, because every single Silver that was guarding the place was dying and yet when it came to Queen Elara, I had a feeling she was sneaking around the place, waiting for Mare to show up. And when the two of them faced off and she died in that malestorm, I thought it was a sucky ending for her. I actually wanted her alive at least till the next book, and then she dies. But it was pretty gruesome to keep her dead body around and show all of Norta that she’s dead and that Maven is a big fat liar (which he is, BTW.)

As for Maven, he wasn’t really in this book. His presence was there, but it was like he just wasn’t gonna deal with Mare’s shit and went to pretend he was king and all that. But he just pissed me off for SO MANY REASONS, even for what he did in Chapter Nineteen, doing that poor person like that. Just to get at Mare, and the clicking, switching thing he got to make sure she doesn't really leave his presence, which sucks, TBH. AND HE’S STILL A JUMPED UP LITTLE SHIT AND I HOPE SOMETHING REALLY BAD HAPPENS TO HIM, HE DOESN’T GET THAT JOB, HE DOESN’T GET ANYMORE PROMOTIONS, I HOPE HE GETS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BECAUSE IT WILL POSSIBLY GET WORSE FOR HIM.

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Book Review: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I first picked up this book, I wasn’t in the mood to even read this book, and that was a couple years ago, I think. Then I picked it up now, and I’m so glad that I read it. I really enjoyed it and it was very different from the fantasy that I’m used to reading. I was shocked about the guns in the book for a second, but then as I kept reading, it kinda works in this world and even the small scientific explanations of the powers were pretty fun to read.

BUT MAVEN. I don’t see why everyone swoons over this man-I hate him. I want to kill him so bad after I read THAT SCENE because WTF my guy. But I sensed that he’s a jumped up little shit the moment he came on the scene, and then when I read that chapter...MOTHER-

Before I get into that and the reason why I hate him, let’s get into the book, shall we?

So here’s a girl named Mare, who is stealing to keep her family well fed and whatnot. She is a friend of Kilorn and sister to Shade, who had “supposedly” died but I’ll get into that the more I get into this review. She is shocked that Kilorn is getting conscripted into the army-something Mare doesn’t want to happen. Because a couple months later she’ll be conscripted into the war as well, so she goes to her friend to find some way to smuggle her and Kilorn out of the Stilts and far away from the Red and Silver world. From there, she meets a woman named Farley, who is part of a revolutionary group called the Scarlet Guard.

Mare took Farley’s price-which meant going to the Silver Island to get something really expensive and really priceless. Unfortunately...that doesn’t happen. She gets caught, but her sister had her hand shattered, and she felt so bad that she went out and met a boy named Cal, whom she tried to steal from...who turns out to be the Crown Prince, who shocked Mare when she got the job of being a maid, and her first job was her being the help at the Queenstrial. During the Queenstrial, Mare’s powers manifest...and she can do lightning.

So what happens when the royal family catches you and brings you to them?

Mare is turned into a lost Silver Princess to hide that she is a Red that can do lightning, and her time in court, though it was short, was very different from everyone else. She had to go to protocol, she had to go take classes on how to be a lady and go to lunches and stuff with the Queen...but at the same time, she’s secretly aligning herself with Farley and the Scarlet Guard, along with Maven...who turns around and betrayed her and Cal at the drop of a hat. Like why, my guy, why….

But then when she and Cal was going to get executed...Maven played a video so twisted, so horrible that I don’t know if I can even call him a proper King for what he and Queen Elara did to Cal’s father (forces him to do) and then the twisted and malicious lies just hurts my soul SO SO MUCH and I fucking hated it so much that I wanted to scream. But I’m glad Mare and Cal escaped, and I’m really glad that Farley is still alive...BUT SHADE IS ALIVE. W...TF….how???

Turns out, this boy can teleport.

Shocking, I know, but then, it kinda fit Shade.

I truly enjoyed this book and I’m glad I read it (and also brought the rest of the series to read in between my other books) and I can’t wait to read more of the series.

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