I have never cared all that much for re-tellings of fairy tales(outside of the music from “Wicked”, which is great). The best become predictable as soon as you figure out what story they are retelling, and most are simply long versions of something that didn’t need a long version. Yet it is popular, and with “Red Queen” by Victoria Aveyard, I found a book that used the ideas from fairy tales as a spice rather than the core of the story. It has magic, wicked stepmothers, royal balls, a prince dressed like a pauper, and a young girl who weaves cloth. Even the title “Red Queen” may be an allusion to the fairy tales. Yet because none of these are the plot of the story, it doesn’t immediately tell you the end, and the author doesn’t point them out so the reader knows how clever she is. They are there for you to discover if you pay attention, but the real story is that of class and wealth, of the powerful and the powerless, and what happens when the scale begins to tilt.

What Happens in “Red Queen” by Victoria Aveyard

The story of “Red Queen” is told from the point of view of a young girl named Mare Barrow. She is a red, a group of humans who have no special abilities who are kept as the lowest class of society by the silver citizens who have silver blood and supernatural abilities that range from super strength, healing or speed to throwing fireballs or even controlling other people’s minds. Mare is a thief who steals from her own just to get by. She also has a sister name Gisa who works directly for the silvers sewing silk and several brothers who have been conscripted into a war that has been going on for generations. A war that she will be conscripted into when she turns eighteen as well, unless she has a job.

What is worse, a good friend of hers who wasn’t supposed to be conscripted because he was apprenticed to a fisherman has a change in circumstances because his master is killed. He is going to be conscripted within days, so Mare takes him to the one person she knows who might help. The man she sells her stolen goods to. He cannot help her but has a woman there named Farley who could help them, but ones a thousand crowns for each of them. More money than Mare has even stolen. But without her, both of them will probably die, so Mare takes a chance.

She convinces her younger sister Gisa to bring her to where she works. A part of the city full of the much wealthier silvers. Her intention is to steal enough from them to pay for their escape, but while she is there a group calling themselves the Scarlet Guard makes an attack against the silvers. The silvers in this part of the city see it on the TV, and a near riot occurs as they begin to attack the reds to find out who knows anything about this.

Giving up on her plan, Mare tries to escape with her sister and they have nearly made it to the gate when her sister makes a mistake. Because she wants to help her sister, she tries to steal the purse of a silver as they pass by. But she isn’t a trained thief like Mare and is caught, and the punishment for theft is to have her hand broken. A punishment that will probably end her ability to do the job that could have earned enough to bring some level of comfort to their entire family.

Angry and to fearful to face her parents, she takes her sister home then runs away to a tavern that she occasionally visits, stealing from the drunks. It won’t be enough to save them, but it makes her feel better. Towards the end of the night, she is caught trying to steal. But rather than trying to turn her in, he gives her a gold crown and then offers to walk her home. As they go, he asks about her life and she explains why she was stealing.

The next morning the guards arrive at her home. She is taken to the palace, but she isn’t in trouble. She has been given a job though she doesn’t know who gave it to her she suspects it was the man from the night before and soon recognizes him as the prince and future king who is about to have a contest among the most powerful women in the kingdom to see who should become his wife, and the wife of his younger brother.

The silver women each show their magical abilities. The final one who is able to move metal uses it to pull several of the boxes out from the wall. Everyone else escapes, but Mare doesn’t and falls helplessly into the electrical shield that is there to protect everyone from the show going on below. She should die, but she doesn’t Instead she discovers that even though it’s impossible for reds to have abilities, she has one. She can control electricity. And more than that, everyone else sees the same thing.

She wakes to discover that the queen is searching her mind using her magical ability. She then explains that in order to cover up for the anomaly of a red having an ability, they are going to pretend that she is the daughter of a dead general and she will marry the younger of the two sons. This could be seen as a good thing, but Mare recognizes the danger immediately. They need to prove she’s a silver to hide what she is and once they have they will kill her with no one knowing it was an execution.

Much of the middle of the story is the intricacies of court politics, a growing lovers’ triangle between Mare and the two princes, the first who has saved her several times and the younger who she is engaged to and discovers is kinder than his older brother. Eventually the younger brother, Maven, joins the rebel reds and Mare joins with him.

They work together on a few ways to hurt the reds, which culminates in a simple idea. The palace is isolated to protect everyone in it, but that isolation could be a useful way to cut off the silvers from the rest of their army. So Mare will convince the older prince to turn on his people and join the guard after they’ve blown up the only way in and out of the palace.

From here, things get far more interesting. There are more betrayals, more fights and nothing goes quite how you would expect even if you, like me, saw some things coming. And like many stories in the modern fantasy genre, it doesn’t end. The fight isn’t over. The characters don’t really have any great victories. They stayed alive, and that’s about it.

What Did I think of “Red Queen” by Victoria Aveyard

I mostly enjoyed this book. It was well written, and the characters were interesting, if not my favorite of all time. Nothing in the story felt groundbreaking but nothing in it had to be because it was well written and smart. I enjoyed the implication that this was a post apocalyptic world that had rebuilt itself and that the magical powers are most likely a genetic change that was intentionally created or caused by the radiation of the nuclear war. That also makes it a fairly easy explanation for how Mare has her ability. Through some method that isn’t explored in this book, reds have experienced mutations similar to that of the silvers, but with abilities that have fewer limitations.

I also enjoy a fantasy story that uses modern technology, and I liked how this was used. There are things like TV, radio and cars, but they are used sparingly, but there are also technologies that are advanced beyond our own like the electrical shield. This explains a world that has largely turned away from technology, something that can be explained both by the war and the magical abilities, but one that has continued to grow anyway rather than feeling like something stagnant and waiting to die. Yet “Red Queen” didn’t catch me quite as completely as some other books. I suspect much of that is that I’m not the intended audience for a young adult book with a love triangle and filled with dances.

Conclusion

It’s always a pleasant surprise when you give a book a chance and are rewarded with something as good as “Red Queen”. I can’t say it would be my first choice for recommendation for everyone, but for young women of the right age or people who love fairy tales I think it would be an excellent choice and I wouldn’t steer anyway away from a well written book with excellent characters.