Red Queen Critique

Set in the vast, fictitious Kingdoms of Norta, Victoria Aveyard’s Red Queen is a thrilling novel centered around the life of heroine, Mare Barrow. Raised in the slums of the Red city The Stilts, Mare lives with her parents and her sister, Gisa. She has three older brothers as well, but they live on the front lines of battle, essentially sacrificing their lives for the sake of their Silver King. For as long as they have known, Mare Barrow, her family, and the rest of the citizens with Red blood, have lived in a world divided by the color of their blood. Citizens with Red blood live lesser lives because they are ordinary, but the citizens lucky enough to have won the genetic lottery and have Silver blood are members of high society. The Silvers are extraordinary, born with unfathomable abilities that set them apart as a race. …show more content…
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys any of those genres, but, in addition, anyone who enjoys an entertaining book. I would give Red Queen ⅘ stars. It was a fun read; I finished it in a little under a week because I wanted to know what happened next every time I put it down. In comparison to other books in the dystopian genre, this novel is a competitor amongst them. The only issue that I have with it, is that in popular dystopian novels, such as The Hunger Games, the social commentary is much more apparent. Suzanne Collins makes many allusions in her book to the problems with modern day poverty, child warfare, oppressive/corrupt governments, and propaganda. Aveyard’s highlights the division between the people and the dangerous superiority complex that most Silvers harbor which relates to modern day issues of classism. In both books there are references to oppressive government and propaganda, but that becomes more apparent in Aveyard’s Red Queen