Red Queen (Red Queen, #1)

This is going to sound completely ridiculous, but I think the best thing about this book is the love triangle. I know. But hear me out.Mare Barrow is your token quick-witted, feisty street rat living in a dystopian world where the upper class superpowered Silvers dominate the subservient powerless Reds. Mare is simultaneously too aware of her situation and not angry enough about it for a teenager. Even though I wasn't a fan, Chuck Wendig's [b:Under the Empyrean Sky 17817631 Under the Empyrean Sky (The Heartland Trilogy, #1) Chuck Wendig https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1369037255s/17817631.jpg 24922171] I think was one of the best examples of how people in the bottom rungs of an oppressive society behave and think. Pierce Brown's [b:Red Rising 15839976 Red Rising (Red Rising, #1) Pierce Brown https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1461354651s/15839976.jpg 21580644] is another great example, which a lot of people have compared Red Queen too. Most marginilized people don't realize what's happening to them, and the one's that do are extremely active, whether covertly or not, in righting things. With the level of awareness Aveyard gives her Reds, a revolution would have happened ages ago.Likewise, the Silvers aren't particularly believable either. We're told over and over again that Silvers are inherently colder, more rational and practical people, and yet all we ever meet are compassionate and sympathetic Silvers. You know, with the exception of the evil harpy female characters like Evangeline and Elara. I'm serious, the only sympathetic female Silvers are dead or mute, which is fucked up. The implication was supposedly that Silver culture raises its people up just to be more cutthroat, much in the way the Golds are in Red Rising. Except in Red Rising you could see that, you met interesting, beautiful, loving Golds who nonetheless were stone-cold killers, which perpetually keeps you on your toes. In Red Queen, you have either evil bloodthirsty psychopaths with no depth or emotion like Ptolemus and Evangeline, or sympathetic and kind characters like Julian who are very clearly going to get stepped on because they don't possess that killer instinct needed to survive in Silver society. There's no in-between.The only vaguely complex characters are the king and his two sons, Cal and Maven. Cal is the handsome one who accidentally gets Mare entrenched in the world of the Silvers, and Maven the one she is betrothed to in order to hide the secret of her abilities. And believe it or not, these guys are actually really captivating characters. Cal is the born prince, the warrior, the righteous one. I like that he simultaneously cares about people and wants to be a good and compassionate king, but also believes in the value of war and that the Reds cannot and should not ever be liberated. Aveyard goes a little overboard making him seem more relatable and vulnerable, and he and Mare's chemistry feels forced at times, but you can see why she'd be into him. And then there's Maven. You know he's slippery and smart, but he shows so much passion for Mare and her cause. This is what a supportive love interest looks like, this is a character with a soul. Considering what a vulnerable position Mare was in, I'm surprised that she didn't fall head-over-heels for him sooner. Maven's a dream. Or at least, you think he is. Maven's swerve was not a huge surprise for me, neither does it negate what I said about his character. Aveyard still gets a lot of credit from me for writing a character that Mare would believably fall in love with, even if the whole thing was a deception. If he ends up being a much better, more well-thought out version of Warner from the [b:Shatter Me 10429045 Shatter Me (Shatter Me, #1) Tahereh Mafi https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1310649047s/10429045.jpg 15333458] series I'll be very pleased.Which brings me to overall plot. Aveyard is not bad at writing action, but not so great at strategy. When Mare joins up with the Red Dawn to help them overthrow the Silvers, they come up with a plan to target specific individuals in the Silver hierarchy, and then break in during a ball and assassinate them each individually. That...that's a terrible plan. It's a horrible horrible plan, and the Red Dawn deserved to get caught for thinking they could pull that off. Of course, there is a reason that all their plans are terrible, but honestly only a child could believe the Red Dawn has a fighting chance at all.And that's the crux of it - in the spectrum of Young Adult, Red Queen is on the youngest end of it. I can see why people would find this enjoyable, and admittedly it got a lot better as it went along. But the writing here is very very blunt and not particularly sophisticated. It has a slog to get through for the most part, I had no real interest in seeing how things ended or what happened to the any of the characters. I would recommend this for a young reader new to YA and dystopias, but for everyone else just read Red Rising.