Glass Sword (Red Queen, #2) by Victoria Aveyard

My rating: five stars

Genre: YA, fantasy

Edition: Hardback

Goodreads Summary: 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 bookclub book of October, I knew I just had to continue the Red Queen series. I loved the first one and had high hopes for the second. I was not disappointed (though it was a little slower than the first one)!

Likes: I like all the new powers that are discovered in this book. On her tour to find more New Bloods, Mare discovers so many interesting and unique-to-their-world abilities. Watching each person learn more about their abilities and what they can do with them was a great time! How Mare is dealing with the responsibility she feels over the New Blood’s and the whole war in general is heart wrenching. She wants to save people while at the same time she doesn’t know how to do that without turning into somehow who she doesn’t want to be. This made me really sympathize with her and want to help her, Victoria described this conflict in such a realistic way. THAT. ENDING. No spoilers, of course, but man that ending left me speechless. SO good. I really liked the character progression throughout the book. We meet new characters and get to see them grow and change (for good and bad) throughout the book and that was exciting to read about. I love the new technology and cities that we get to see. The first book mainly took place in the palace, so it is nice to be able to see more of the world of the Red Queen series.  

Dislikes: I honestly didn’t really dislike anything in this book. It tore at my heart in places but that just made it better. There was a character that wasn’t my favorite in the fact that they seemed to be rude and hateful to Mare, when I don’t think they should have been. It seemed a little on the unrealistic side, but I guess I could see where they were coming from.  

Overall, I loved this book. I love the plot, the characters, the abilities, and the writing style. This story is becoming one of my absolute favorites, and I really hope that King’s Cage is as good as the first two.