King’s Cage (Red Queen, #3) by Victoria Aveyard

My rating: four stars

Genre: YA, fantasy

Edition: Hardback

Goodreads Summary: In this breathless third installment to Victoria Aveyard’s bestselling Red Queen series, allegiances are tested on every side. And when the Lightning Girl’s spark is gone, who will light the way for the rebellion?

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.

I was finally able to pick up the third book in the Red Queen series, and I am so glad I was able to. Even though I rated the second book four stars, this is still one of my favorite series of all time. So the fact that it took me so long to pick up King’s Cage is sad, but I am so happy I waited until I a time that I could focus on it fully.

Likes: The whole situation that Mare is in is insane. The ending to Glass Sword shocked me, and seeing how that situation is playing out is CRAZY. Even though it would normally be boring because she is just sitting in a cell all day, somehow Victoria makes it entertaining. This book doesn’t have many physical fights, but the mental battles that go on are equally as intriguing. I love learning about psychology and how people think, and this book was full of that. I am not one of those Maven lovers who are hoping for a redemption arc, however, I can see how messed up his childhood is and I feel sorry for him. I do not think that it is a reason for him doing the things he did, but it does show some of the actions that caused him to become that way. All the character development throughout this book is wonderful, and I love reading about it. I also love one of the fight scenes that happens later in the book, the descriptions are so cool, and some of the characters involved were not as surprising as I wished but were still great.  

Dislikes: This story honestly seemed so slow. For some reason I was just dredging through it so slowly and it seemed like it was going on for forever. That was one of the only negative things that I found with the book, and it did make reading it not as enjoyable. The only thing that really annoyed me about this book was the ending. One reason is because of how predictable it was. The subject was brought up so much I figured that it had to happen sometime. But I didn’t want it to! Like what the crap, why even. I feel like there was so much character growth in all the characters that this scene shouldn’t have happened. In the first book it would have made sense, but these characters have grown so much, the last scene just seemed unrealistic and undoes all the good that the characters have accomplished personally.

Overall, even though the pacing was slow, and I did not like the ending at all, I still loved this book. It took me through a whirlwind of emotions, and the psychological aspect of it was interesting. I loved the character growth and how the characters grew together. This was just a deep book that solidifies why I love this series so much. I can already tell that the last book is going to wreck me.