Glass Sword

Introduction

Glass Sword was written by Victoria Aveyard and published on February 9th, 2016, by Harper Teen publishing company as a sequel to Red Queen. This book took me several weeks to read, but I did enjoy it, and I would like to eventually reread it without so many distractions stopping me. For those who haven’t read it yet, I would recommend starting at the Spoiler-Free Thoughts section for a general overview of my opinions. I will warn you that there are minor spoilers to the events of Red Queen in this section, so if you haven’t read the first book, I would avoid this review altogether. Those looking for a deeper conversation can continue on to the Thoughts section. If you have thoughts or opinions on this book that you want to share or discuss, feel free to leave them in the comment section on these posts or in my DMs. I love discussing books with other people, and I am always interested in others’ opinions!

If you want to explore more of Victoria Aveyard’s work, check out her website https://victoriaaveyard.com/ and follow her on social media @victoriaaveyard.

Plot

The knowledge of newbloods is out there, and now that Maven knows of their existence, it’s a race to see what will become of them. Will they be saved by the rebellion or slaughtered by the crown?

Spoiler-Free Thoughts

I really loved that the plot picked up immediately where it left off because it meant that there was no awkward time, location, or character jump that the author would need to explain. We could get right back into the action with no preamble. Speaking of the events of Red Queen, I enjoyed seeing how Maven’s actions affected the world and people around him on both a large and small scale. Obviously the kingdom is reeling from the death of its king and betrayal of its prince, but Mare’s trust issues in the book that effect how she interacts with every single person around her are another completely understandable result. It’s obviously hard for those who do love her, and it’s disturbing knowing that Maven did so much damage in his mother’s quest for power, and he’s just getting started.

I thought this book was well paced, the plot kept moving along nicely, but I was especially glad to see that Aveyard didn’t feel the need to have an excessive amount of action sequences. The book was tense without being too intense, and while it would be unrealistic and boring to have everything go perfectly, I feel like it’s just as unrealistic to have every single plan fail spectacularly. This book had a good balance to it.

The ending of this book did a number on me. I remember that when talking to my friend, she said that she finished this book and never continued the series after that because she didn’t have the next two books. I am honestly not sure how she did it because after finishing this book and returning it to her, I was at Barnes and Noble getting the box set of this series. It was an emotional rollercoaster that I was not expecting to be taken on. Fast paced, brutal, devastating, badass, it was everything one could ask for in the final pages of a good book.

I found this installment difficult to engage in at times, but part of that could absolutely be because of how short on reading time I was. Regardless, I felt that it was better than its predecessor and the ending had me immediately reaching for King’s Cage. Because of this, I rated this book an 8.5/10.

Thoughts

I appreciate Mare’s excess of caution in this book, especially after the last one. Her instincts toward Cal seem to be better than they were with Maven, but aside from that, I understand her not completely trusting her family. Shade is back, which is amazing for her, but it doesn’t just explain away his absence, and after Maven’s betrayal, it’s natural that she’s wary of him and the Scarlet Guard. Their success in book one when it seemed they were just Farley’s little group of rebels seemed very unlikely at the time, but it’s a dystopian fiction and the impossible is commonplace, so I didn’t think much of it at the time. Now, seeing the magnitude of their force and knowing that this still isn’t the full extent of it makes their victory seem not only realistic, but it makes winning this rebellion appear much more possible. It has me really excited to learn more about it and see where Mare comes into play with all of this.

As mentioned above, I liked the pacing and scattered action sequences in this book, but adding to that, I loved that Maven was still around in the form of his notes to Mare. I really want to believe that he still cares for her in whatever twisted capacity he’s capable of, and I have an incredibly strong suspicion that his mother was behind his hatred of Cal and their father. Why that doesn’t extend to Mare as well, I’m not quite sure.

To briefly delve into the romance in this book - though there wasn’t much - Maven is clearly off the table. In my mind, even if he does get the redemption arc I’m hoping for, too much damage has been done between him and Mare for them to ever end up together. Additionally, Mare has made it clear to Kilorn that they won’t happen either because she sees him as family and nothing more, which leaves Cal. I’m all for that relationship, but given this is book two of four, of course it won’t be that easy. Even now, they both do or at least have the capacity to manipulate one another, which isn’t the greatest foundation for a relationship, and all of that ignores the tragedy between them and the fact that they may believe in similar ideologies but want to address it in near opposite ways. I just can’t see that working when part of the reason I even considered her and Maven together in the first book was their supposedly shared beliefs and willingness to act on them.

I really want to expand on the ending here. Shade’s death was devastating to me. I spent the whole book right there with Mare trying to figure him out, and when I had finally grown to trust him and see how he was truly a good person - not a perfect one, but a loyal, loving, good one - and how much he loved his family and Farley, just to have him die right after getting him back. Absolutely heart shattering. Having that followed by Elara’s brutal death at Mare’s vengeful hands was almost terrifying because that isn’t the Mare we’ve gotten to know the past two books. However, she comes back at the very end. All Maven had asked for in this book was for Mare to return to him, but while that would have been the noble choice, it also would’ve been a stupid one. She’s too valuable as a face of the revolution, and Maven wanted her too much for them to just give her to him regardless of her value. But at the end, to match Shade’s sacrifice and protect those left that she loves the most, she gave herself up to Maven to save them all. My jaw dropped when she was made to kneel before the entire kingdom, and I needed the next book in my hands immediately.

My favorite quote from this book was “For them, I hold back. I curl inward and bleed alone, inside, where no one else can see me.” Mare thinks she needs to be strong for everyone around her, and I felt like this was the perfect representation of what she felt her part was in this rebellion, unfair though it may be to her.