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RedditToday I am doing a King’s Cage book review by Victoria Aveyard. This is the third book in the Red Queen series. If you have not read Red Queen or Glass Sword there will likely be spoilers to both books in this review. As usual I will try to do a spoiler free series review first and then warn you when it’s time to move away in order to avoid spoilers.
As always this review will be spoiler free for King’s Cage, but with any series there are likely to be parts that spoil previous books.
Let’s dive into the King’s Cage book review, first starting out with a brief overview of my thoughts.
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:
- Slavery
- Gore
- Murder
- Poisoning
- Torture
- Violence
- Narcissism
For a list of the triggers I look for you can check out this link here.
King’s Cage Book Review
After yet another shocking cliffhanger, King’s Cage picks up right where the last book left off. You start off the book with Mare’s point of view and I was completely horrified by what was happening to Mare.
This book really dives into the emotional and mental side of Maven and it leaves you feeling absolutely broken for him. You understand him better with this book.
While the book was slow at first it leads up to a major action scene that has you questioning everything that you know so far in the book and looking for answers and more. It makes it hard to put down the book for any reason while you seek those answers.
This is all I can give that is spoiler free for the first two books. At this point you need to either stop reading or be prepared for additional spoilers.
Synopsis and Author
In King’s Cage, Mare is the prisoner of the vindictive king. Between the mind games, the silent stone blocking her power, and a game meticulously played by everyone involved we can only hope for Mare to escape. In the meantime, the rebellion is organizing and preparing for the inevitable war to come.
Victoria Aveyard builds a world and then takes us on an adventure with the Red Queen series. Her ability to build characters that are flawed while also making us feel bad for the villain of the series is fantastic.
My Reading Experience
Ok now that the spoiler free version and the brief synopsis is done I can finally get to the meat and potatoes of this review. Victoria Aveyard threw me for an absolute loop when she introduced the points of views of other characters in this book.
I should have seen it coming with Mare being captured but at first I was taken aback by the change in view points.
This book grabbed me by the heart and tore it directly from my chest. We finally get to see what is within the monster and why he is the way he is. We see that he will stop at nothing to have everything his way.
This book made me cry, rage, cheer, and gasp in horror. It was a roller coaster and I’m glad I went on the ride. Except, for all the good parts there were parts of this book that left me completely disappointed.
What I Didn’t Like About King’s Cage
This book dragged more than the last one. There weren’t as many action scenes, it dove too heavily into the combat planning, and it was filled with a lot of fluff that just was unnecessary.
The biggest complaint that I have is a lot of things were thrown in this book that were never hinted at before that felt extremely forced. For instance there is an LGBTQ character in the book that you don’t see coming and in the end while I love the character it comes at a bit of a shock.
So it feels like the character was picked in order to make the book inclusive. We could have had a small scene in the first book with this character that would have made it clear they were LGBTQ.
Between the fluff writing, the explanations of combat planning, and the forced inclusion it really slowed down the momentum of reading.
What I Love About King’s Cage
Maven. Don’t get me wrong I hate him with a passion especially after his actions in Glass Sword. His character development was strong in this book. You start to understand why he is the way he is and what made him that way.
Again the world building and character development take the top notch in this book even if one character in particular becomes a bit of a whiny selfish brat towards the end.
My Favorite Parts Of King’s Cage
Without spoiling the book there is a twist from an enemy that is one of my favorite parts of the entire series. They will stop at nothing to protect the only things they love even if that means helping someone they don’t particularly care for.
My Ratings For King’s Cage
Alright, we’ve made it to the rankings. Now as always there are a few different things that I rank instead of just an overall ranking. I find it helps people figure out if the style of book is worth their time or something they will like.
World building is the same as the last two books, a 5 out of 5 stars. Victoria finally brings into play surrounding kingdoms and we get a glimpse into what those look like so we can follow the story along.
Character development is a 5 out of 5 as well. Most of this 5 out of 5 actually comes from two characters I was not expecting and 1 character that I already loved, Farley. What Victoria does in this book is give us a full picture of what the motivations behind these characters really are.
Spice ranking. Let it be known that this is a young adult book. The one spicy scene was not at all great and felt very sloppy. 0 out of 5 stars.
Overall ranking, 3.5 out of 5 stars for King’s Cage. Sure the book was entertaining if you can forget things that happened previously. The forced inclusion and the fluff of the writing was horrible. Additionally, decisions that were made towards the end of the book had me literally yelling at the characters involved.
As this series goes on I find it harder and harder to read. I really try to understand that this is a young adult fantasy, so I don’t hold anything on the characters based on their ages. However, the fluff and unnecessary detailed explanation of battle plans that just kinda ruins it.
I found myself scanning, yet again, to get to the good parts of the book. This could be on me. I may have gotten to a point where young adult books just don’t do much for me anymore.
Final Thoughts on King’s Cage
Look I’ve gotten this far so I finished out the series and no one can blame me. If I make it past book one I will typically finish out a series. The ending of this book had me simultaneously annoyed and angry about what our main characters are pulling.
Mare’s treatment of those around her in this book really starts to irritate me as well. I’m hoping for a more positive approach to her character growth in the next book.
Since there is a lot that needs to be said about a series I do plan on doing a full series review with spoilers. For those of you who have read the book and wish to hear my full unedited rants and raves I will post a link here in the future after I’ve written and posted it.
Previous Reviews:
Have you read King’s Cage? What are your spoiler free thoughts on 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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