Audiobook Review: Glass Sword (Red Queen #2)

Author: Victoria Aveyard

Narrator: Amanda Dolan

Audiobook Length: 14 hours 50 minutes

If there’s one thing Mare Barrow knows, it’s that she’s different.

Mare Barrow’s blood is red—the color of common folk—but her Silver ability, the power to control lightning, has turned her into a weapon that the royal court tries to control.

The crown calls her an impossibility, a fake, but as she makes her escape from Maven, the prince—the friend—who betrayed her, Mare uncovers something startling: She is not the only one of her kind.

Pursued by Maven, now a vindictive king, Mare sets out to find and recruit other Red-and-Silver fighters to join in the struggle against her oppressors.

But Mare finds herself on a deadly path, at risk of becoming exactly the kind of monster she is trying to defeat.

Will she shatter under the weight of the lives that are the cost of rebellion? Or have treachery and betrayal hardened her forever?

The electrifying next installment in the Red Queen series escalates the struggle between the growing rebel army and the blood-segregated world they’ve always known—and pits Mare against the darkness that has grown in her soul.

[Queen Song #0.1 / Steel Scars #0.2 / Red Queen #1 Reviews]

Glass Sword is the sequel in the Red Queen series.  I’m continuing to listen to this series on audiobook and the narration definitely helps my enjoyment of the series, especially as the plot’s pacing in this story was a lot slower. Although it felt like not much happened in this novel, it was nicer to learn more about the setting and characters. Everything in this story essentially builds up the cliffhanger ending before the reader begins the third novel.

Mare Barrow has escaped Archeon and Maven and is now a part of the resistance. Her new mission is to gather other newbloods, like herself, to try and build an army. While I enjoyed her in the first novel, I was not a huge fan of her character in this novel. She is dealing a lot from the betrayals of the first novel, but she seemed to take it to the extremes where she would be a little too self-centered and shut out those that actually care for her. Luckily, this was not the case for the entire story and slowly she returned to the more likable character from the first novel. I am looking forward to reading more about her character growth as the series continues.

There continue to be multiple plot twists and betrayals to keep the reader guessing about what will happen next. There are two main plots in this story: the rebels on the run from Maven while searching for newbloods and then the planning and execution of a large raid with potential deadly consequences. However, the characters are what make this novel enjoyable as all of them get a little more depth add to the ones we were introduced to in the previous novel.

It was great learning more about Farley as I did not connect with her in either the first novel or the novella, Steel Scars. After learning more about her, she has grown a lot on me as a characters and I enjoyed her a lot in this novel.  Shade continued to shine in this novel and he and Farley were an adorable couple. Kilorn was amazing in this novel and it was very interesting seeing his perspective as the “normal” human without any special powers. Cal is at a crossroads as he wants to find a way to help the Silvers still while being on the run with the Reds and assisting in their cause. In addition to getting to know more about the established characters, it was also great to learn more about the new characters, like Cameron and Jon, who I hope get further explored in the next novel.

Overall, this part of the series helps the readers to connect more to the characters with a little bit of progression in the plot. So far, this is not my favorite series, but it still has potential as there are two more full novels and a novella left to bring everything together.  Now that there is a new obstacle presented at the end of this novel, it will be interesting to see what happens next. I am very curious to see how King’s Cage turns out!