My Fictional Ramblings

Review: King’s Cage by Victoria Aveyard

King’s Cage is the Third installment in Aveyard’s Red Queen series. In this book we get multiple POVs which was nice because as I said in the review for the previous review, Mare tends to grate on my nerves sometimes. This book follows Mare’s imprisonment under Maven and what has happened with the Scarlet Guard in the mean time.

I really enjoyed this installment. It was well balanced story wise between action and quieter moments, Mare seems to have finally ceased thinking she’s The One and we even got a little romance between her and Cal which was nice.

I liked the addition of Cameron’s POV a lot, as she has a vastly different perspective on all this. The battle scene during the storm was awesome and suspenseful.

I would have liked to see something from Maven’s POV. He’s a Kylo Ren-esque villain but I find him a lot more interesting than Kylo and I would like to get in his head at some point.

Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard Review

SPOILERS

Glass Sword is the second installment in the Red Queen series by Victoria Aveyard. This book picks up where Red Queen left off. Accused of treason and murder, Mare and Cal are with the Scarlet Guard, on the run from Maven and his mother.

This book was decent. I’ve seen complaints that this is just a combination of different YA fantasy tropes and yeah, I guess it is, but it works for me. I enjoy the plot and I care about the characters. Shade’s death at the end had me shook and I felt like everyone had a realistic reaction to it.

I have to admit I don’t actually like Mare...she’s very young and the product of a system that has kept her intentionally uneducated, which I don’t fault her for but she’s also just...repeatedly making the wrong decisions and talking about how special she is and like...she’s not really all that special. I almost feel like Aveyard tried to do a chosen one trope but there’s nothing about Mare that makes her the chosen one. Sure she’s a Red with Silver powers but so are a lot of people. She’s just the first one that the royal family happened upon. And yeah she’s crazy powerful but so are a lot of people in this universe.

I do, however like a lot of the other characters, particularly Cal. He’s flawed and sometimes downright problematic but he’s at least interesting and competent. The romance between Shade and Farley seems a little bit shoved in there and it almost came out of nowhere. The whole thing is through Mare’s POV up to this point and maybe if she had spent a little less time thinking about how super special she is and how she can trust no one while she trusts exactly the wrong people, and was a little more perceptive, I might have been invested in Shade and Farley more.

One of Us is Lying By Karen M McManus Review:

One of Us is Lying is a YA murder mystery. A group of 5 teens get hauled into detention under false pretenses and only 4 walk out.

Simon Kelleher runs a gossip app that airs the dirty secrets of everyone in the school and he has something on each of the other 4 so they all become suspects in his murder.

The story is told from the perspective of each of the 4 kids in turn, following them as they try and figure out who killed Simon and clear their names.

If you want something that will keep you guessing and engage you, this is it. It was a great, quick read.

I went into this expecting it to be a 3 or 4 star read but I devoured it and the mystery was so well done and the characters so fleshed out that it definitely earned that 5th star.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!

Sorry, fam, Tumblr mobile is being a bitch and I’m sans internet.

Characters are always a big thing with me so I wanted to touch on each of the mains for a minute and mention what I liked about them.

Cooper Clay is a star baseball player, being scouted by colleges. He actually doesn’t fall into many stereotypes. None of them do, which is refreshing. Copper is southern which is great but I’m not sure McManus has actually heard a southern accent because even when mine is at it’s thickest I don’t say “ah” instead of “I.” That aside, he is sweet and kind and has a lot of love for his family. He’s gay and Simon plans on outing him to the whole school. The secrets he keeps lead him to be a little distant with people and that causes him some problems in his normal life and through the course of the investigation.

Nate Macaulay is the token bad boy. I say this in the sense that he’s on probation for drug violations that are a result of his poverty and neglectful parents but otherwise he’s a good kid. I’m always a sucker for a bad boy. Simon’s app planned to reveal his continued drug dealing.

Bronwyn Rojas is the over achieving daughter of a successful Colombian immigrant and his wife. Simon finds out she cheated to get an A in a class she was struggling in.

Addy Prentiss is the sweet, but initially weak willed beauty queen who made some poor decisions due to insecurities and cheated on her terrible boyfriend.

Simon Kelleher is an in-crowd wanna be and...kind of a psychopath. He sadistically reveals secrets that have life ruining results with no detectable remorse. He treats everyone like crap then blames them for not including him in things to the point where he decides to end it all but frame his classmates for it, effectively taking them down with him.

The four “suspects” are able to figure this out before their lives are ruined completely but not before they experience a hefty amount of emotional distress and trauma. I really appreciated how realistic their character development felt to me and how Addy’s relationship with her boyfriend wasn’t depicted as even a little bit okay, even having him be in on Simon’s scheme just to get revenge on Addy for sleeping with someone else.

I guess it could be argued that Bronwyn and Nate were a little insta-love-y but I think that for teenagers in a messed up situation it was pretty realistic for them to be drawn to each other the way they were.