Monday, February 20, 2017

Audiobook Review: King's Cage

Title: King's Cage
Author: Victoria Aveyard
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: February 7, 2017

In this breathless third installment to Victoria Aveyard’s bestselling Red Queen series, allegiances are tested on every side. And when the Lightning Girl's spark is gone, who will light the way for the rebellion?

Mare Barrow is a prisoner, powerless without her lightning, tormented by her lethal mistakes. She lives at the mercy of a boy she once loved, a boy made of lies and betrayal. Now a king, Maven Calore continues weaving his dead mother's web in an attempt to maintain control over his country—and his prisoner.

As Mare bears the weight of Silent Stone in the palace, her once-ragtag band of newbloods and Reds continue organizing, training, and expanding. They prepare for war, no longer able to linger in the shadows. And Cal, the exiled prince with his own claim on Mare's heart, will stop at nothing to bring her back.

When blood turns on blood, and ability on ability, there may be no one left to put out the fire—leaving Norta as Mare knows it to burn all the way down.


I'm not totally sure where to start with this one. This one takes place over a very large amount of time. Like nine months worth, which is much longer than the other two books. So it's no surprise at how long it is.

It also contains more than one perspective. Of course, most chapters are Mare, as this is her story. But there are two others that occasionally pop in, giving us an idea of what is going on in the rest of the world.

First, for like 90% of the time of this book there is no action. Mare is Maven's prisoner, and he keeps her silenced. So she doesn't even have access to her lightning abilities. The little we see of the Scarlet Guard is mostly planning. There are a couple of instances where they actually go and do things, but those are very few. If you were expecting the action of the first two books, you'll be disappointed to find it's mostly centered around Maven and his scheming. And he is really quite the schemer.

One really awesome thing is that we see even more of the world than we did in Glass Sword. We travel outside of Norta to the neighboring kingdoms--Piedmont, Montfort, and the Lakelands. So we get to see some of the other cultures and how they deal with the whole red vs silver thing.

One of my main problems with this one is that I didn't feel the chemistry between Mare and Cal. When they were thinking about each other, when they see each other. It just seemed to disappear. I loved them together in the first two books, but there was not much to them this time. That said, I'm not particularly surprised at the frustrating ending. I'm mad at it, but it makes complete sense character-wise.

All in all, I do still enjoy the series and plan to read the final book. But if you were on the fence about reading it to begin with, you might just want to skip it.

Characters: 3 stars
Plot: 3 stars
Writing: 5 stars
World: 4 stars
Feels: 1 star


3 stars

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