Book Review: War Storm (Red Queen, #4) – Victoria Aveyard

Published May 15th 2018 by HarperTeen
Format: Novel
Genre And Themes: Romance, Fantasy, Young Adult, Heroes, Slavery, Rebellion, Superpowers
Length: 672 pages, Hardcover
Ebook ISBN/ASIN: 0062422995 (ISBN13: 9780062422996)
Characters: Tiberias Calore “Cal” VII, Mare Molly Barrow, Maven Calore, Cameron Cole, Evangeline Samos, Iris Cygnet

I’ve only read the first three books this year.  Red Queen is a fantastic first book with fresh world building and very dynamic characters. I especially loved its main protagonist Mare Barrow. I do not understand why some readers doesn’t like her saying she’s too whiny, too annoying and all those shit. I actually loved that she’s very “human,” or very “Red” if you wanted to put it that way. I don’t like someone who’s too perfect. I don’t like someone who doesn’t have flaws and who’s OTP selfless and all those things that sometimes makes you wanna scream while reading because  seriously – she doesn’t need to be freaking Mother Teresa.  The second and third book didn’t click with me. I find them repetitive and well, annoying. Not because of Mare but because of how the story was stretched.

This fourth book for me is a bit of a letdown. I had hope that Ms. Aveyard would redeem herself by delivering a conclusion that is so strong it would make you want to see it on the big screen ASAP.  That ending was too forced for me. The nostalgia was forced in a way that it kind of tried to go the same way Rick Yancey did it with The Last Star via Evan’s character. Yancey’s ending didn’t work and so as this one. Before I delve deeper, let me enumerate a few things I loved about this last installment of the Red Queen Series. I’d try to be as spoiler-free as possible:

First is that we do not have Cameron’s POV and thank goodness for that. She was just annoying in the previous books and she is still annoying here.

Second is Evangeline’s character. She’s wicked but somehow there’s something about her that makes you understand why she’s doing all of these wicked things. She’s got loyalty that’s for sure. And she loves with her heart.

Third on my list is Iris. For those of you who doesn’t remember her. Haha. She’s actually Maven’s wife and is a Lakelands’ princess. You’d have to read the book to discover what her role is in the book!

And then there’s Maven. Poor evil Maven.  He’s my absolute favorite aside from Mare and Kilorn and it pains me that Victoria decided to kill her but I totally get why Victoria had to do it. I was thinking about it while trying to go through my day job and it totally made sense. Why would she keep him alive? It’s like letting a criminal get away with his crimes without any punishment. And he’s done too much evil to get a major redemption arc. I mean, in a way he probably got it via Mare but he’s got it coming for him and he knew he would die. I didn’t like that Cal was too chicken to actually go through it but I was certain prior to reading this that if Maven would actually die, it was through Mare’s hands.

Overall, I find the book a bit too ‘stretched.’ It was too long and I almost skipped but decided to go through everything since we’re not too busy at work. Haha! Again, that ending for lack of a better word was such a buzzkill. It doesn’t feel finish at all and it’s begging for a longer ending or perhaps an additional novella and we’d probably get it sooner than later. In average, I’m giving this series a total of 2.5 ratings.

If you’re a hard-core fan, you’d probably enjoy the length of the book but seriously, it’s just toooo much! I would just recommend reading the epilogue and you judge for yourself if you wanted to read its entirety.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

About The Author
Victoria Aveyard graduated from USC, where she majored in screenwriting. RED QUEEN is her first novel. She splits her time between Massachusetts and Los Angeles. You can visit her online at www.victoriaaveyard.com.