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Mare Barrow is a prisoner, powerless without her lightning, tormented by her lethal mistakes. She lives at the mercy of a boy she once loved, a boy made of lies and betrayal. Now a king, Maven Calore continues weaving his dead mother's web in an attempt to maintain control over his country—and his prisoner.
As Mare bears the weight of Silent Stone in the palace, her once-ragtag band of newbloods and Reds continue organizing, training, and expanding. They prepare for war, no longer able to linger in the shadows. And Cal, the exiled prince with his own claim on Mare's heart, will stop at nothing to bring her back.
When blood turns on blood, and ability on ability, there may be no one left to put out the fire—leaving Norta as Mare knows it to burn all the way down.
Genre: YA Fantasy
Publisher: HarperTeen; 1st edition (February 7, 2017)
Page Count: 528 pages
Glass Sword ended on a horrible cliffhanger so when I went to the library to return it, I picked up King's Cage!
The Plot: The plot reminded me of if Katniss was captured instead of Peeta in The Hunger Games. For the majority of the book, Mare is in Maven's clutches, trying desperately to get out, while the rebellion is trying to rescue her. Because Mare is trapped the author added two more points of views to keep the reader up to date with the outside world, so we have two more plots added with Evangeline and Cameron, though personally, I didn't care for these point of views very much. I care about Mare and what happens to her. I liked her end of the story, but I didn't really get into the other two.
The Characters: Mare is in a horrible situation because her abilities are being suppressed as she's captured by Maven. Throughout, I'm constantly concerned for her and what Maven is doing to her. I root for her as she struggles to find a way out.
From when Cameron first came into the books, I found her obnoxious and nihilistic. I know she has a love for Morrey her twin brother and she had a difficult life, but that wasn't enough to make me like her.
Evangeline's POV I care for the least. I'm not that crazy about a lesbian point of view who has an active sexual relationship, sorry.
Maven is very fleshed out in this book. You can't help but get close and personal with him and we get a lot of interesting backstory about why exactly he's so dang messed up.
I enjoyed Cal and the other side characters, though we didn't see too much of them in this book until near the end. I love Mare's family.
The Setting: Most of the story is set in the Silverblood palace, which is very ornate, but also creepy.
Epic Things: Lots of characters with superpowers.
The Theme: Mare has to now find her identity in herself instead of just her abilities. Beyond being a newblood, she's Mare. She's strong, perseverant, and caring.
Content Cautions: This book had the most content out of the series so far. One character is lesbian and another is bisexual. There are two implied heterosexual and homosexual sex scenes. Guts, a beheading, and brain matter are mentioned in detail. Characters are bled out to make objects. D*** is used seven times, h*** five times, ba***** four times, a** two times, sh** two times, b***sh *** once, and then there's an f-bomb.
What We Can Take Away For Our Writing:
1.) Multiple First Person POVs Done Right - However much I didn't really care for the additional POVs, I have to admit, Aveyard is the first author I've seen do multiple first-person POVs right. Each POV was distinctive. I didn't feel like I was just reading photocopies of Mare. It was very well done and that's very difficult to do. Allegiant and The 5th Wave did this and both failed, the latter miserably.
How this can be applied to writing: If you're thinking about doing multiple first points of views, definitely read this book just for that if anything.
Conclusion: This was my least favorite book of the series. I'm a little put off by all the extra added content, but I'm still going to read the final installment. Just three stars for this one.
I'm a screenwriter/YA author who likes books and lists. This site is the nexus of my universe.
My book RED QUEEN will be published Winter 2015 from HarperTeen at HarperCollins. I'm repped by the incomparable Suzie Townsend at New Leaf Literary & Media, Inc.
The genres I'm into include YA, Fantasy, Historical, Adventure, Apocalyptic - if people are dying, I'm buying.
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Other Books I've reviewed by this author:
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