War Storm: the finale

More stories from Madalyn Cottrell

Prom at MVHS
May 17, 2021
Moderna Review
April 27, 2021

“War Storm”  is the last book in Victoria Aveyard’s “Red Queen Series.” Her story follows Mare Barrow’s dramatic rebellion for equality between Reds and Silvers. Reds are “normal” humans who bleed red blood, and Silvers rule over the Reds and all control certain elements depending on what High House they come from. Their blood is silver. Mare Barrow has only ever known life as a Red, but discovers she has Silver abilities. And from this, equality for “new-blood”  and Reds begins to manifest.

I was obsessed with the first three books, but the finale is overall underwhelming, slow-paced, and very uneven. I love Aveyard’s writing style. She does a great job at conveying the emotions of the characters and I also do like how each chapter in “War Storm is from a different perspective. Aveyard’s books revolve rather heavily around the two main characters, Cal and Mare, so it is a breath of fresh air to have a couple chapters from the view of the enemy. But, coming from multiple different perspectives, it did tend to get confusing to follow. Aveyard tends to jump from place to place, and this  created a feeling of rush as I read.

The plot, in my opinion, is rather bland in this book. In the past, Aveyard had a fantastic contrast between conflict and stability. The same events recur in this book, and it grew rather painful to push past. It is also rather boring at times. Her past few books have  a lot more depth, and their content is more original.

Another thing I am going to pick at is the number of characters introduced in this book. Aveyard already has such a large cast of characters in “King’s Cage,” and I feel like she stretches herself too thin in this book. There is often too much going on, and minor names are thrown around random moments.

There is a clear resolution in this book. I really do admire that Aveyard calmed down the drama in this book, and it did make it easier for her to reach a conclusion. I just feel that a better approach could have been taken in order to make this far less confusing.