Review: Glass Sword (Red Queen #2) by Victoria Aveyard

Glass Sword (Red Queen #2) by Victoria Aveyard
Publisher: Orion
Publication Date: February 11th 2016 
My rating: 3 stars

I fell hard and fast for Red Queen last year, the amazing world the Aveyard created, fast pace and brilliance of characters was sort of hard not to love. So of course I was eagerly anticipating Glass Sword, I couldn’t wait to be back with my favourite characters once more and see how everyone would be dealing with what had gone down, especially as the wrath of so many characters would be expected.

The world Aveyard created was once again brilliant, there was always danger looming around every corner, with you never knowing what could happen and you being in a constant fear of something happening to somebody you loved. But I think Mare’s character sort of dampened my experience of the book, yes I did expect her to be a changed character after everything that happened in Red Queen, but at times she really came across as this insensitive cold person and I think that really came across more strongly when a lot of characters who knew Mare pointed that out too. At times I wanted to shake some sense into her and be like look at all the good things in front of you, why do you keep being drawn back to that one person? And I could see that everything that she wanted to do and was willing to sacrifice, was for the greater good of everyone else, but I just wanted our old Mare back, the one who could have a joke about with Julian, who was clever and skilled but still knew when to reign her control into check. Who didn’t lie constantly to these who deeply cared about her and who just for once listened to her heart.

My complaints about Mare aside, other characters were able to step up and really make my reading experience of Glass Sword a worthwhile one. There was Cal who despite me not having a clue most of the time what he was thinking, I loved having him around, his demeanour always came across sort of scary and untrustworthy, but the poor guy had been through so much and he found himself with people he didn’t really know if he could trust. But I always loved how he came through, how he was always willing to do things he wouldn’t have dreamed of, he was such a torn character, but that I think made me fall for him so much more. Despite being vulnerable, his strength he displayed was immense. Then there was Kilorn, I loved the happy go lucky guy we were given in Red Queen, and although we got snatches of that in this book, again like many others Kilorn was another forlorn character who had been through so much but was still trying to hold his head up high. Alongside Cal and Kilorn there were a great bunch of new characters that Aveyard introduced that although I was wary of to begin with, they had me excited at every scene with them, in wonder of all the things that could come. These new characters also gave off a great X-Men sort of vibe, with their various abilities that I wish more time could have been spent getting to know these characters. Hopefully more time will be spent with them in future books.

Aveyard also knew exactly how to bring up the tension and create wonderful scenes of destruction and power. Also the journey along the way for our characters was exquisitely sprinkled with fast paced scenes of brilliance which really raised my heart rate and blood pressure through the roof. I only wish alongside this, all the potential romance that had subtle hints of coming through had been focused on more. But with so many things going on and the story being pulled in so many possible directions, I could understand Aveyard’s need to put it on the backburner. Overall despite me not enjoying Glass Sword as much as I would have hoped, this book didn’t end up putting me off the rest of the series. We were dropped with so much hurt and bombshells in the end, that I know the wait for book three is just going to be a killer.