Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard Review

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.

My Thoughts: After feeling kind of luke-warm about Red Queen, it took me a while to pick up the second book in this series, but I can safely say that I understand the hype now.  My biggest qualm with the first book was Mare’s lack of involvement in everything that happened to her.  I honestly didn’t really like her and found it hard to find a reason to root for her, except that I knew I was supposed to.  That all changed in Glass Sword.  Mare finally took charge of her situation and I am living for it.  She is more likable, relatable, and real in this book, and I think Aveyard did an amazing job of showing how complicated and dark Mare’s emotional life is after everything that has happened.  It makes sense to me now, after reading the second book, why Mare was how she was in the beginning.  Her journey is a much larger than I had realized.  All of the characters are so much more complicated and well developed in this book, including the tortured and exiled Cal, whom I adore.  I loved the plot with the new-bloods, and finding out about each of their powers was exhilarating.  The immediate action in the first chapter really drew me back into the world, and I appreciated the lack of unnecessary recapping.  The battle scenes were spectacular and gruesome once again, and I was screaming out loud at my book.  They are so incredibly cinematic, and I am dying to see these books on film (and would also die to play Evangeline Samos… hit me up Hollywood).  In addition to all of that, I think my favorite thing about this series is that I have absolutely no idea who to trust, what is going to happen, or how the hell they are going to get out of any of it.  I am so happy that I finally gave this series another shot because I am completely hooked.