War Storm

It was offered for free… I don’t understand why u signed up and didnt get it for free. I didn’t even get a chance to buy it either.

See when I started the series I thought Mare and Cal would last till the end of the series until I read the epiloge of Kings Cage. then I read this and my mind was blown. I would recommend this book any day, thank you Victoria Aveyard for this amazing book series.

I’m having a hard time putting a star rating on this book. On the one hand, I thought it was an appropriate ending to a series that has been dark and complicated and severe from the start, and even though the ending wasn’t exactly what I wanted, I thought it was gracefully done – the inevitabilities were handled well, and the things I didn’t expect never felt gratuitous or forced. Still, it took me a long time to get through this book after the break-neck speed with which I finished the first three in the series. The multiple points of views felt sluggish at times, and there were definitely characters I was much less invested in who took center stage as well as characters I liked a lot from previous books that suddenly disappeared from the heart of the action. While this was my least favorite of the four in the series, I enjoyed the world for what it was and am looking forward to seeing what Victoria Aveyard comes up with next.

Well, well, well…. I honestly was left speechless when I received the book just because of the sheer size of it. I’m not a huge fan of book over 500 pages. Simply because of past experiences with books of that size. War Storm proved to be no different from the rest. With an overabundance of information thrown at you, extreme amount of filler story and the vast amount of detail given to the many wardrobe changes the plot, the finale, the end of the Red Queen series seems MEH.

While the characters remained true to who they had been throughout the series, the many viewpoints I found unnecessary. I felt a lot of the information could have been provided even with sticking to one or two viewpoints. The amount POV only added to the extended story which seemed not to really serve much purpose. In fact, the story is very much on the political spectrum of a fantasy world (YAWN) then an amazing ending.

The ending, the last 100 pages is where it all gets wrapped up and I’m still left wondering what it is I read. I was so disappointed. So, let down. I was just so over the book by the time I got a hundred pages in. I was waiting for something, anything to pick up and when the action did come it just didn’t wasn’t as fueled up as it could have been. It seemed muted in comparison to Aveyard’s other works.

Overall, I think this was a failure for a finale, but as a review based on just this book it was okay. Definitely not a book that can read alone. Well you could but I think you’d be rather lost with who, what’s and whys.

This is the last book in the Red Queen series so I was expecting a good ending and maybe a happily ever after for our leading lady Mare and Cal. Did it happen? Nope, not even close.

After 4 books of world warfare, you would think there would be a spectacular ending but it was just flat. I completely forgot what happened in the book after a week because it was so boring and flat. It’s a good thing I was listening to the audio version because I would’ve thrown the book to Timbuktu.

I feel like the Red Queen series was a waste of my time now but it seems to be popular among the young-adult crowd. If you’re a young-adult super fan you’ll probably like this series. Happy reading!

I loved this series! I’m still a bit curious at the ending. There are still questions that I, personally, would like answered. There’s also a lot left up in the air about Mare’s future, but that makes sense at her age. Nothing is set in stone when you’re 18.

I think there is a lot to take away from this series in the way of racism and classism. There are definite parallels that can be seen between judging a person based on the color of their blood or the color of their skin as we see in our own world. I also saw some distinct parallels to the servant and slavery aspect of people with red blood versus people of color being slaves in our own history.

In certain characters, I saw messages of brainwashing and possibly nature vs. nurture. Especially with Iris, it seems she never lets go of this idea that there are people who are beneath her. I really disliked that character! On the other hand, I loved seeing some growth in the character of Evangeline. She seemed to truly mature throughout the course of the series and I loved seeing where this final book took her.

At the end, I feel like there are possibilities of where else this story could go. The future of their continent, the possibilities of Mare and Cal, and whether or not they could get to a democracy of sorts. I kind of like the open ended situation though, it leaves us, the readers, to come up with our own conclusions and predictions.

War Storm brings us to the conclusion of Victoria Aveyard’s bestselling series Red Queen, finally taking all the threads of power, politics, and romance together to create a satisfying if predictable conclusion. The things I didn’t like about the previous books in the series continued to disappoint, while other parts I continued to appreciate. In total, this was a fine ending, but I wasn’t particularly impressed in any way: the resolution of the Red/Silver war, Mare’s final ending, Maven’s villainous comeuppance… it was all just okay.

War Storm ties together several plots that have been brewing for three books: the growing awareness by both Reds and Silvers of the vast and unfair inequalities between them, the war with the Lakelanders, the country of Montfort and their bizarre new system of democracy, and Maven’s continuing obsession with both his brother and Mare. The scope of this novel is the broadest we’ve ever seen it, engulfing Mare not only in the struggle for Reds of her own nation but throwing her into the deep end of a multinational war. The scope of the war diminishes the personal relationships of Mare and the rest of the characters, making this novel feel action-packed but shallow.

What I wanted from this book was to make me finally believe in Mare and Cal; at the end of the last book, they split apart seemingly for good, Mare choosing to fight for the Red cause and Cal choosing to take up the mantle of king of Norta. What should’ve been a novel bringing the two of them back together, letting the reader stew in their distantness and emotions, but instead we got a lot of them giving each other loaded looks and a messy reunion. Instead, I found myself again drawn to the messy and terrible relationship between Maven and Mare, bolstered by the fantastic Maven POV that we got in this book. His bitchy, complicated narration was everything I hoped it would be and my only complaint is that we didn’t get more of it. Maven continues to be one of the more interesting villains I’ve read, with his amputated brain, the true villain of Elara continuing to puppet him from beyond the grave. His obsession with Mare is still unsettling, still motivated entirely by possession and greed and not real love, but that relationship continues to be the most fascinating. Cal, his personality and motivations, continue to be so… bland. So mindless in the face of new information, continuing to protect Silvers despite his awareness of their myriad evils, wanting the crown when he’s seen it corrupt his forefathers, these issues wouldn’t be such a big deal if we were in the early stages of characterization, but to persist in these troubling ideas this far into the narrative made Cal seem stubborn and unyielding. At least Maven is self-aware enough to realize that the acts he commits are atrocities and chooses to embrace them for his own interests. He just continues to be a better, well-rounded character than Cal, and while I’ve never wanted him to end up with Mare, their relationship is just far more interesting.

I was pleasantly surprised by all the different cultures and ways of life represented among the countries of Red Queen. The Lakelanders, the people of Montfort, even the intricate workings of the Samos family, so many different ways of life are communicated here, so many different families and cultures all being represented. In a way, I felt like this was a callback to the first Red Queen book, where Aveyard flexed her worldbuilding muscles the most. I still think this is one of her strong suits and I would be interested in seeing her take on a more magical kind of story where we could see more of this worldbuilding.

Ultimately, I think Aveyard moves too far away from the conflict that got readers invested in the series: the Red and Silver inequalities. The first book and even the second focused on these unfair hierarchies and the massive damage oppression can do to populations, which is always something hard to tackle and even harder to tackle with grace, but I think she nailed it. In the third and fourth books, we move on to international conflict, large-scale war, introduction of other factors, all of which take away from the main storyline. The ending of this series felt less about Reds earning equality and more about the ending of a complicated and fancy war, which was a bit of a letdown. The war is action-packed, decently described, high-stakes, but that’s not really what I wanted from this series. Plenty of fantasy books have wars, not all of them have a reflection of real-life issues.

War Storm was a fine ending: it tied up all loose ends, all characters ended up where I thought they would but where I wanted them, and was a decent addition to the YA dystopia genre. I expected more from this series going in; I really liked a lot of what the first book was doing but the series lost the thread a little. I still found it entertaining and if one is looking for a easy, action-packed read, this series is the way to go, but if you want a little more depth to your YA, perhaps don’t go with this massively long series.

review blog

Okay here is my review for the RED QUEEN series. (Red Queen) I loved the first book, such great character building, and world-building. I really like the small relationship between Mare and Cal. (Glass Sword) I also liked this book. The induction of Shade character was one of my favorite parts, he was such a well-done character. And a great introduction into the New Blood characters of the story. (King’s Cage) This one is where it started to go downhill for me. Don’t get me wrong, I still love the story it was just hard for me to get into multiply character’s points of view. I never finished reading the book but did finish the audiobook which made it a bit easier. (War Storm) Which brings to this last book. This one did make me like Evangeline a bit more and I was happy how her story ended. The ending for Mare and Cal I kinda intercepted. This last book had the most battle scenes which I feel was okay but I feel like it took away from Cal and Mare’s relationship. But I still enjoyed the book series and I’m glad I finally had a chance to finish it all.

It is absolutely amazing! I have never been able to escape through a book before! My life sucks, but Aveyard helped!

I have never skimmed a book before and I skimmed with this one. I felt more than half of the world building of this book was useless to further the plot of the book. I became bored switching to points of views in characters that I wasn’t invested in. I began to skim nearly halfway through the book. When I got towards the end I read page by page but the ending left me disappointed and even angry. I continued on through the short story collection to get some resolution but was even disappointed there.

Overall I felt the series reached a high point midway through King’s Cage – then it slowly started falling down. I was very disappointed because I loved the first three books so much. But when it came to this one, it just left me disappointed.