War Storm (Red Queen #4)

I LOVED the first 2 novels. The third was good also, but this one was just-predictable. Theres this tug of war between Mare & Cal & I feel like the epilogue just didnt satisfy my hunger. It feels incomplete & Im left feeling blah at the end. Im disappointed for that to be the ending to a series that began so great.

Awful. Just awful.
1. There were hundreds of pages of filler that I found myself skimming over. I was glued to every word of the previous books, but almost gave up reading this one. Still, I continued, because I love the characters developed in the previous books and I had to know how it ended!
2. This book also had very little character development. Nothing was added from the previous books. In fact, it almost seemed like someone else wrote it at times.
3. The whole book seemed avoidable with a 2 minute conversation between Mare and Cal.
4. The ending was even worse! After fighting for everything Mare and Cal had, this is how it ended?! It felt like the author gave up. Completely. It didn’t fit with the story, or with any actions the characters would have ever taken. Ever. It didn’t make sense. I’ve wasted hours and hours of my life, for this!
5. I was promoting this series to friends and family to read. However, after this, I will tell them not to bother. And, I won’t bother reading anything else from this author.
Grave disappointment!

The final installment of this series left me with a bitter taste in my mouth….no, not because, as other commentators have pointed out, Mare and Cal dont get a fairytale ending, but for other reasons:

Mare and Cal have both undermined one another over and over. They understand and love one another, but have different ambitions, opinions, and goals. Their ending was, I feel, believable and as sweet and hopeful as could be expected.

!!!Spoilers for the first books and vaguely-phrased spoilers for this one ahead!!!
No, my gripe is with the other Calore No, no, no, not because I was team Maven: that ship sailed burning over the horizon long ago no way on earth that was going to end happily. But, Mavens mind was torn apart by his mother: so much of what he did was literally out of his control. It was a fascinating premise, and I really did look forward to how it was handled. How was it handled, you ask? Poorly. It was an opportunity to explore mental illness and culpability; dogmatism and forgiveness. Ive struggled with whether or not these themes were addressed, and I just didnt like the message the author decided on….but no, I think not. It was just used as an opportunity to …..show Mare in a certain light. For a more in-depth (and spoiler-filled!) commentary on that, see the comment attached to this review.

Adding to this, other characters who have committed atrocities for ambition, out of ignorance, or just for funsies are given free passes, because they were revealed to have some redemptive quality usually romantic in nature. Ah yes, character X killed hundreds of Reds, contributed to political instability, etc….but it turns out character X has a lower-class lover! Cool, send them to the land of milk-and-honey!

As for pacing, the book dragsssss. Its told over multiple viewpoints, which should give us nuanced insights into each factions motivations….except that those motivations were often so bland and and cringe-worthy, I found myself skimming them by the end.

Four books, two novellas….aaaaand more on the way! Because that ending *facepalm*. I have never seen a more blatant cash-grab. The epilogue should have just read, “ending coming soon…..for just three more installments of $4 in novella form!” I admire Aveyard’s writing, I really do. But how this series was dragged out was unnecessary, and contributed to more money out of my pocket for less quality. I’m not putting any more money into this series, and I’m extremely hesitant to invest in any more from this author, if this is her standard.

Ultimately, three stars for an interesting premise, nuanced romance between characters whose backgrounds put them at odds, and decent world-building. Minus two stars for trying to force me to care about characters that I don’t care about, dragging the story though too many books, and turning a nuanced villain into ….whatever that was about.

I am so sad about this ending. I thought the ending of Divergent was horrible, but at least there was an ending. I am so angry right now.

The Red Queen which is the first book in this series is fantastic. I would describe it as a Hunger Games meets Harry Potter story. I was hooked immediately and tore through the first book but unfortunately thats where this series peaked. Book two was meh and books three and four were terrible. First, they should have been combined and this should have been a trilogy. Second, they just seemed to drone on and on with so many unnessary scenes and story lines. Finally and most frustratingly is that after reading these books its appearant Miss Aveyard has never been in love and has quite possibly only experienced terrible relationships. She excelled in describing the disfunctional relationships between the characters but all the emotional moments just fell flat. All the romantic relationships within the book were luke warm at best and unfortunately you are forced to read all four books to figure that out. I had such high hopes for this series after reading Red Queen and was thoroughly disappointed. If you dont mind ending in a cliff hanger Id say Red Queen is an enjoyable beach read, but save your money on the next theee books. You wont get the satisfied ending you expect after spending $45 and countless hours reading.

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