Rating: 1 star out of 5
"Even with an army at my back, I am still alone."
The follow-up to Red Queen, this book follows Mare, a rare person with red blood and silver abilities, as she whines endlessly about her life. Among other complaints, she feels it is hard being the chosen one, hard being alone even though all of your loyal friends are with you, and hard to be so special that no one else can understand. Mare spends the book attempting to find others like her, but it proves time consuming-- so time consuming that it takes up all 400 pages.
Sadly, this is the worst book I have every actually finished. I almost gave up on it many times, and having reached the end, I only regret that I didn't.
As a preliminary matter, I greatly enjoyed the first book, and I wanted to love this one, so no one could be more disappointed than I am about my opinions.
In brief: nothing happens. 400 pages should have been condensed to 100, which could have formed the mediocre beginning of a different book. As nothing happens, the book is incredibly boring. I've had heavy academic reading that was more interesting. There never seemed to be a point to the story.
Mare, whose conflict and overall personality I liked in the first book, becomes unlikable and unrelatable here. At times, I would have rejoiced in her death. The other characters in the book are ignored to a point that is almost farcical, except for when Mare is insulting and denigrating them. She gives special attention in this to her best friends. The only character given any real development is Cal, if you are paying very close attention. New characters are given so little time that I couldn't confidently list which ability a single one of them had even seconds after setting down the book.
Love triangles (or one girl with three male love interests as exists here) don't usually bother me. But for there to be a romantic story, there needs to be some kind of romance. Here, all the men just immediately fall for Mare. She then insults them endlessly in her head before, once in a long whole, kissing one of them briefly. I didn't get the impression that Mare has genuine feelings for any of them. I sometimes wondered if she is capable of genuine feelings at all. There is no sense of "Oh! She'd be good with him!" or "Oh! But she really loves him!" because Mare seems to think they are all beneath her and barely tolerates them. The partial exception to this is Maven-- she is low-key obsessed with Maven, although he's evil and has treated her horribly. Despite her obsession, though, she doesn't seem to like Maven, much less have the capacity to love him.
Finally, Aveyard isn't a very good writer. She uses superfluous words to try to make the most dramatic, poignant, and quotable metaphors and similes possible. This wouldn't merit mentioning if it were done sparingly. It is done in nearly every paragraph-- sometimes more than once in a paragraph, and in a very heavy-handed and painful way. It is distracting, unnecessary, and detracts from the book.
Despite my incredibly negative feelings, I will probably read the third book to see if things turn around at all, but I'm not optimistic. If anyone is reading this who hasn't read the first book, I would advise you not to start the series.
I'd recommend this to no one. If you really liked the first book, skip this one entirely, get someont to spoil the last 10 pages for you, and pick up the third one hoping for the best.
