Glass Sword

By Victoria Aveyard

Book Overview

The #1 New York Times bestselling series

Perfect for fans of Lauren Robert's Powerless and George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones series, Glass Sword is the high-stakes follow-up to the #1 New York Times bestselling Red Queen.

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?

Discover more wonders in the world of Red Queen with Broken Throne: A Red Queen Collection, a companion novel with stories from fan favorites and new voices, featuring never-before-seen maps, flags, bonus scenes, journal entries, and much more exclusive content

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0062310674
• ISBN13: 9780062310675
• Release Date: April 2018
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 0.79 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.3" x 8.0"
• Age Range: 13 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 8 and higher

Customer Reviews

Wasted time

This was my take on it; Red queen had some minnor annoyances, but for the sake of the story, which overall i liked, i decided i'd keep reading. However, glass sword was beyond annoying. For one, not a fan of the writing style. Overly descriptive about stuff that has no necessity to the story. Rooms, hallways etc. I can see why it is necessary in some instances but not for every single place. Or at least shorten up the description, a sentence or so would do. 2+ paragraphs describing a place or item with little or no significance is not needed. This causes the book to be reeeaallyy drawn out. Especially with geographics. I myself could care less about the map of the towns to begin with, but some readers may appreciate it and it gives more structure to the story, so in that case I understand. BUT AGAIN I don't find it necessary to have so many paragraphs on the location of towns. Say it was North, say it was South. I can justify a paragraph, but half a page for every place?! There is also an abundance of repetion with Mare's narration, frequently bringing up the same memories from the first book with the same conclusions. The best way to explain it, made me feel like i was re-reading the same paragraphs throughout the book, which truthfully, I was. This also makes the book painstakingly long. I believe it is good to have a recap of the first book with her memories and her feelings, but please, explain it once and be done. Next, and I cannot stress this enough, It is so difficult to tolerate the main character anymore. Mare is slightly annoying in the first book, but her ego needs to be taken down a peg or two...or 10! Unless the author intended her to be a very hateable character. Again, being repetitive, she is FREQUENTLY boasting to herself about being the lightning girl, she places herself in a position as though she is the most powerful character in the book. The arrogance on her! Not only is it annoying how repetitive it is, but its annoying having to read her constant boasting, when in fact, other characters in the novel have much cooler and more deadly powers that could easily destroy her. Her ego is absurd!

Can't wait to read the 3rd book!

I loved the book. It came in good condition. We get to see new characters and more plot twists. Surprisingly not so much betrayal. The plot twist at the end is crazy. It's not as fast paced as the first book but still very good

Great book

I loved this book! Not as much as the first one but its still a good book. I only put the book down on the slow parts but there were very few of them.

Glass Sword is a tragedy

Any faith that I had in Aveyard as an author died in Glass Sword. Back in Red Queen, I had issues with the writing: Mare’s narration tended to be the cheating kind. First person point of view is very limited to only that single character’s head. Mare can’t possibly know the motivations behind characters’ decisions or actions without their telling her what they are. Mare knows without ever asking. The Maven twist came along and I settled back into enjoying the story. Aveyard used Mare’s confidence in reading people against her. Mare will learn from this experience and ask people what they are thinking and feeling more often, right? Nope. In Glass Sword, Mare continues to read people’s minds and be generally correct with no real fall out when she is wrong. It is much easier to create an emotionally intelligent character that can read people as easily as if the author is reading them for them (aka cheating) than it is to have that same character be flawed and grow from mistakes. The world building is flimsy for such a grand scale story. For instance, the fact that Farley charged Mare an insane amount of money to escape conscription rankled. I know that people who cross the American border from Mexico lose a lot in the journey. I can understand where Aveyard may be coming from with this. However, it was set up as though no one has ever escaped conscription before let alone asked for help in escaping. It stuck in my head. Jewish babies were smuggled out of Nazi Germany ghettos. Why isn’t there a system in place for the Red population? It’s eventually revealed that there are chunks of Reds living somewhat free from Silver rule within Norta. It was a nice surprise. This world building issue, however, continues into Glass Sword. Many other reviewers have spoken about this. We’re taken to different cities, but we don’t take the time to know them. Mare is brooding for the entire novel and can’t stand to give anyone her attention or trust. That included the newbloods that they spend most of the novel searching for and the towns that they visit. Yes, they may have found less newbloods if the characters took their time exploring the cities, and the suffering people within, but the story would have been significantly more satisfying. Characterization is also thin. No one in Red Queen seemed to have any interests or hobbies. What do they do outside of class? What do the kids in the royal court think about besides the crown? Cal got slightly more as the romantic lead. He builds motorcycles and reads a lot of books on war. Why not take the time to get to know Walsh even if she’s now lower in station than Mare? Or show Evangeline have an emotional range past rage or jealousy? What does Maven’s bedroom look like? And so on in Glass Sword. I mentioned before that Mare spent the novel brooding. Even though she can read everyone’s minds through slight body movements alone, she doesn’t actually know anything about any of the characters. She gets Shade back and immediately pushes him away. What was he doing when he was in the Choke? Not a clue. It eventually becomes a small joke amongst the characters. Mare didn’t notice something because she too busy being self-involved? LOL. It’s not a cute look, Aveyard. Change the point of views or change Mare. Instead, we get neither, and the story drags and drags yet manages not to give any real new information. I could go on for a while, but this review is long enough.

Good read

Honestly the whole series is dark, but the main character starts to wrestle through her emotions and circumstances; which is causing her to lose that innocence you see in the first book. That being said, this is still an excellent story. I was surprised and I am very curious to see how things progress in the third book. Definitely worth the read

Underrated

I honestly don't know why this book gets such a bad rap. I really enjoyed this book, the same as the first book. It still kept me on my toes and the story line didn't become muddled or forgotten like a lot of sequels have a tendency to do. There were a couple of slow parts, but that is the case with any book. The slow parts still held crucial information for the story line.