Imme van Gorp's Reviews > Red Queen

|| 2.5 stars ||

Mare and Cal both had the personality of a wet blanket and I could genuinely not care any less about either of them. They were truly the blandest people to ever exist and having to watch them pretend to have chemistry or tension between them was simply embarrassing, especially as neither of these hollow characters could ever convincingly portray any strong emotions for anyone or anything.
Their “connection” truly made no sense and was based on absolutely nothing. It was basically insta-love, and it truly bothered me to see Mare’s constant attraction to him, even despite knowing he stood against everything that she loved and believed in.
Mare literally just betrayed her whole belief-system by having these feelings while Cal betrayed his own brother by acting on them, and for what? The most stale and meaningless romance ever?? It was simply ridiculous.

Maven seemed like a somewhat interesting and intriguing character with at least some sort of depth to him, but, unfortunately, he had non-existent chemistry with Mare from beginning to end, so all of his scenes were always a little awkward because of that.
The fact that he constantly got sidestepped by everyone for his wet blanket brother, Cal, honestly made me annoyed most of the time. I know it’s probably controversial to say this, but I didn’t even feel that bad about what he did at the end. Sure, it was a bit over-the-top and dramatic, but I didn’t truly blame him for wanting revenge and for wanting to come out on top. I can’t really blame him for having the guts and brains to outsmart everyone, especially since nobody was ever truly in his corner.
I mean, is he a good person? Certainly not. He is pure evil. But honestly, I’d argue that all of the characters are terrible, cowardly, and deeply selfish people. The only difference was that Maven wasn’t absolutely dumb as rocks like all the rest of them.

Anyway, I have to say that the plot was pretty simple and underdeveloped as well. It had an okay premise but the book didn’t do much with it and simply lacked a feeling of suspense in general. It all remained rather surface level, which is a shame, since the plottwists in this were actually good, so this could have been a really cool story.

When it comes the the writing and the pacing I honestly have some mixed feelings. On the one hand it was rather easy and smooth to read, thus making it possible for me to fly through these pages quickly, but then on the other, it also lacked any kind of depth or true emotion, thus making it a bit hollow and empty.

Long story short, I’d say this book was nothing to write home about.