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RedditToday I’m doing a review for Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard which is the second book in the Red Queen series. Let it be known that if you have not yet finished or read Red Queen which is the first book of the series you will not want to read this Glass Sword book review yet. There are likely spoilers to the first book in this review.
While I always try my hardest to avoid spoilers it’s almost impossible in the case of a series to remain absolutely spoiler free. I will give a brief series spoiler free review before moving on into what will likely spoil Red Queen. As always this review will not spoil what takes place in Glass Sword.
Trigger Warnings
Since we don’t always get trigger warnings on books I like to give trigger warnings in my reviews. This can help people avoid certain triggers that could hurt their mental well being.
Possible Triggers in this book are:
- Gore
- Murder (including an infant)
- Torture
- Violence
- Branding
For a list of the triggers I look for you can check out this link here.
Let’s dive right into the review of Glass Sword, first starting out with a brief overview of my thoughts.
Glass Sword Book Review
My only complaint from Red Queen was that I didn’t feel a full range of emotions and didn’t feel particularly emotional about any of the characters. I still felt the book was great, I just wished I had felt more. That cannot be said for Glass Sword.
This was an excellent sequel to the first book and I wasn’t expecting where this was going at all. Victoria Aveyard took me for a ride and I enjoyed every single second of it. It was at this point that I put down all other books and focused solely on reading this series because I was hooked.
After dealing with betrayal Mare starts to step into her own even though she struggles with what her future will look like. Mare’s growth in this book is exceptional and happening while Mare herself barely realizes that she’s growing. She is stepping up to take on a vindictive and toxic king who is not afraid of using propaganda to get his way.
That’s it, that is all the series spoiler free review I can give. From this point on it is not safe to read if you have not yet read Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard.
Synopsis and Author
After narrowly escaping what would have been certain death, Mare finds herself the main target of the Silvers and their army of reds. Mare and Cal find out they are being declared as murderers of the king in a large propoganda campaign. This makes the task of finding other Reds like Mare difficult because they must stay hidden. Mare must rescue others like her, avoid being caught by the vindictive King, and deal with the emotional toll of being a part of a rebellion.
As previously mentioned this is the second book in Victoria Aveyards Red Queen series. The author is a young adult fantasy writer based in Los Angeles. Paramount is currently developing a series based on Red Queen for streaming. Let’s all hope they do a great job with this.
My Reading Experience
After being hit with the betrayal by Maven and the queen in Red Queen I knew I needed to immediately get to the next book to find out what happens. I was not anticipating that I wouldn’t be able to put the series down till I finished it.
In Glass Sword we find out more about the rebellion as well as a list of names of people who likely have special powers like Mare. After narrowly escaping Maven and the Queen after their betrayal and thanks to the rebellion, Mare sets out to find and recruit these people who are like her.
It is in this mission that Mare gets a glimpse into the cost of rebelling against the current system. She feels those losses heavily, she narrowly escapes the clutches of Maven, and she is tested to see if she herself will become a monster.
Mare’s growth journey, her flaws, the battles lost, the small wins, and the lives lost really solidified my attachment to these characters. I cried, I cheered, and I was horrified.
Feeling every emotion in the book I was absolutely hooked on the series.
What I Didn’t Like About Glass Sword
A lot happened in this book. I mean a lot, and as I’m writing this review I realize that some of the major events that happened in this book were so much that it’s hard to keep straight what happened when and remember it all.
There were scenes that I don’t believe were necessary for the story and while we were getting to know more characters those same characters rarely make appearances later in the series. This leaves the story dragging in some places and also wondering what the hell happened to certain characters later in the series.
What I Love about Glass Sword
Mare is not a heroine. She is flawed, not perfect, and sometimes can’t think past herself. This is freaking perfect. I love flawed characters. Victoria Aveyard made Mare a real person with real flaws like selfishness. She even had times where she became downright cruel.
I like when I can yell at the main character and be like, “what are you doing?” I did that a couple of times in this entire series. Mind you Mare is 17 at the beginning of this series. She is not supposed to be perfect and caring. 17 year olds are typically selfish and can be cruel. It’s realistic for her to not get it right.
Having her actually grow up in this series and dealing with the process of that, is something that was brilliantly done by Victoria Aveyard.
My Favorite Parts Of Glass Sword
I really enjoyed the action scenes in the book and there were a lot of action scenes. One of the last action scenes was my favorite because a certain character dies. I couldn’t wait for their death and was delighted for it to happen. It came with a massive cost though that left me absolutely broken.
My Ratings For Glass Sword
As always I do not just give an overall ranking on books because it doesn’t do the books justice. I like to rank certain areas and then give an overall score. Additionally, understand I do not give 5 star reviews often. A book has to be truly fantastic for me to give it five stars.
World building gets a 5 out of 5 stars. Victoria Aveyard gives us new locations and as her usual just enough world building that we can use our imagination to fill in the blanks.
Character development gets a 5 out of 5 stars this time around because of Mare’s flaws. All of the characters feel realistic to their age and life experiences. I enjoyed hating on Mare, being annoyed with Kilorn, terrified by Maven, and feeling sorry for Cal. It was very good character development.
There was absolutely no spice in this book at all so it gets a 0 ranking. Which is perfectly fine, not all books need to have spice.
My overall ranking for this book is still a 4 though. Mainly because there were a lot of unnecessary scenes and boring parts of the book. There were times that I caught myself scanning because I was bored. If you can get past those parts though the book is filled with action, drama, and growth.
Final Thoughts on Glass Sword
I think Glass Sword is worth the read but as I’ve seen in other reviews on GoodReads, you either love Red Queen or you hate it. I personally like Victoria Aveyard’s writing style. I love how she develops her characters to be flawed and realistic.
People’s biggest complaint with this book was Mare and how she acted. For me that was my favorite part because it was a main character that absolutely was a real person with real issues and personality flaws.
The cliffhanger at the end is a killer and the next book in the series is pretty great. As I continue to review the rest of the books in the Red Queen series I will link them below.
Full Red Queen Book Review can be found here.
Have you read Glass Sword? What did you think of it? Let me know in the comments below. Follow me on Pinterest for more like this and pin this to your favorite book boards.
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