Antz: Audiobook
Lima: Hard Copy
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Lima: So...how did you like the Hunger Games pt. 4?
Antz: I thought it did a very good job at fusing Hunger Games and Divergent together. But it did have some redeeming qualities! I liked the whole magic thing, and the audiobook version was beautifully narrated...even though I thought the main character’s name was Mayor the whole time lol You?
Lima: Mayor...of Whine Town...I sincerely wanted to like this book. I picked it for one thing lol but I’ve seen it on shelves for months, it seemed right up my alley. It’s got the kind of simplistic, stark, sexy cover that makes you know this book is about to be a big deal; something shiny with something deadly, what’s not to like? But it just fell so short for me. It was like X-Men meets YA lit. I wanted original, not a re-hash. Maybe it was different on audio but omg the main character seemed like a bag of constant whining about everything ** SPOILER ALERT** from leaving her home to being betrayed by a man who never really loved her to begin with...Those are two very different situations dude. Very. Different. **SPOILER ENDED**
Antz: I agree!!!! She did whine a lot, even in the audiobook version! The narrator was great though, she had clear character voices and her tone and pace were fantastic. It was not rushed or lagged. The same narrator does the second book as well, so that should be good.
Lima: It also bothered me that she had so few “good” qualities but landed in the lap of luxury. At least Katniss has a heart of gold and was likeable.
Antz: This did not bother me much...what bothered me was that…**SPOILER ALERT. STOP HERE IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE BOOK. SCROLL DOWN TO THE NEXT NON-SPOILER SECTION MARKED BY A NON-SPOILER HEADER** here was a girl who has lived her entire life without any sort of training to control her ability and all of the sudden BAM there they are...without any explanation. Like… where were her abilities all these years? If she had no idea how to control them...she should’ve been shocking people left and right. ESPECIALLY cause she’s an emotional human and her abilities ignite with emotion. Also...that “love” for Cal was SO sudden...she knew him for about 3 seconds before she was already day dreaming. I think the book fell for the same mistakes a lot of YA authors fall for: Love triangle, quick love, and not enough character development.
Lima: I agree. I think they try to explain this with her brother’s DNA, as well as hers, is different but there are five kids and two parents. Really? She’s never noticed, no one else has experienced these things, she’s just a giant bucket of special? If this does end up being a whole “it’s in the DNA thing,” it can go one of two ways which is, in the next book, her sister will be married or a silver or whatnots, or, her whole family is dead. Lol she falls in love faster than me at 14, goodness. She’s just suddenly swarmed by men isn’t she.
Antz: Yes she is! Also, the whole “special without any rhyme or reason” reminded me a lot of Divergent, but I feel like Divergent did a better job at explaining it than this story. We shall see how it develops in the next books.
*SPOILERS OVER*
Lima: To me, some of the language itself was so similar to the Hunger Games, I was grinding my teeth. “...champion of our (?) people” and whole leaving home bit...Unfortunately, I think we’ve both seem too many poor books explode into something big. The Red Queen is too popular to not head in the same direction. However, it lacks originality and similar to how pop music in the 1990’s said, “how can I sacrifice quality writing and instruments for a quick and easy mass sell to a market who will buy all my crap…?” this author did the same to literature with this book.
Lima: IT’S THE BRITNEY SPEARS OF LITERATURE.
Antz: Hhahahaha, I can see that! There is a second book releasing in February (are we reading it?), and I think it will be a trilogy. You KNOW the movie is coming up probably too, cause the book is all over the place! But I did like SOME things. A few of the plot twists were very predictable, but a few of them I actually did not see coming. So it did keep me going for a bit. But I agree, too much fluff, not enough solid writing.
Lima: I see you Britney.
Antz: Ops. She did it again.
Lima: There are things she touches on that are nice and certainly important to impart on younger readers like people are people regardless of difference and the dangers of trusting too easy, but there were ways to do it without borrowing from other popular books.
Antz: I agree. I think the premise behind it was good, but the delivery was lacking. What’s your star rating for this one?
Lima: An overly generous 3. It’s possible that is because I LOVE Britney Spears…
Antz: I agree with this rating. 3 out of 5 seems fair.
tl;dr: The Britney Spears of Literature
***/5 for The Red Queen
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