Book: Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard

Published February 2016 by HarperTeen|444  pages

Where I Got It: I borrowed the hardcover from library

Series: Red Queen #2

Genre: YA Fantasy

If there’s one thing Mare Barrow knows, it’s that she’s different.

Mare Barrow’s blood is red—the color of common folk—but her Silver ability, the power to control lightning, has turned her into a weapon that the royal court tries to control.

The crown calls her an impossibility, a fake, but as she makes her escape from Maven, the prince—the friend—who betrayed her, Mare uncovers something startling: she is not the only one of her kind.

Pursued by Maven, now a vindictive king, Mare sets out to find and recruit other Red-and-Silver fighters to join in the struggle against her oppressors.

But Mare finds herself on a deadly path, at risk of becoming exactly the kind of monster she is trying to defeat.

Will she shatter under the weight of the lives that are the cost of rebellion? Or have treachery and betrayal hardened her forever?

The electrifying next installment in the Red Queen series escalates the struggle between the growing rebel army and the blood-segregated world they’ve always known—and pits Mare against the darkness that has grown in her soul.

After reading The Red Queen earlier this year, I knew I had to read The Glass Sword, so when I saw it at the library, I knew I had to check it out!

I really liked it, and I feel like the more we learn, the more questions I have about what’s going on.  The ending to this book had me wondering what would happen next, and it makes me glad that I read the first two fairly close together. There’s going to be waiting for the next book, of course, but at the same time, that means plenty of time to read both Red Queen and Glass Sword again.

There is a lot going on, and we see quite a few new characters.  There were definitely times where I had trouble keeping up with who was who, and who had what ability, and what was going on, and so I found myself re-reading parts of it because I kept missing stuff.  It’s not Aveyard at all, it’s just me not paying a lot of attention. Maybe another read will help things sink in.

There’s a lot of action, and there weren’t any lulls, which kept me reading, because I wanted to know what would happen next.  I’d be really curious to see what this series would be like if it were adapted into a movie (or even a t.v. show) because there are definitely parts of it that seem made for being on screen.

I really wish Cal and Mare had more chemistry.  It’s nice to see a fantasy that’s light on romance- actually, it seems pretty rare- but at the same time, it seems like there might be something between them, and yet them together…something seemed off.  I did like Mare, who really is different than the Mare we see in the first book. She’s selfish and makes mistakes, and yet…she really has been through a lot, and became someone who wanted to protect the newbloods as much as she could.  We really see what this is doing to her, and how much it’s changing her…into a much different person, who seems less naive and a little bit more cruel.

And doing what she did at the end of the book…it’s definitely a cliff-hanger for sure, and it makes me wonder what’s in store for the books to come.  It’s sort of surprising, since this series is 4 books, and the way it ended is what you’d expect for the end of a 2nd book of a trilogy.

I didn’t mind it all that much, though, because it has me hooked.  And again, it really raises the stakes and makes you wonder what’s in store for the next 2 books.

Now that I think about it, something about Mare reminds me of Tris from the Divergent trilogy.  Going through the things that both Tris and Mare go through, it changes them.  It’s been a while since I’ve read Divergent, and I don’t really know why I was suddenly reminded of Tris, but they both had to make some tough decisions.  I don’t really know where I’m going with this, so I’ll leave it at that.

4 stars.  There are definitely some twists and turns, and there’s quite the cliffhanger at the end!  I can’t wait to see what happens next!