This is a hard review for me because of all the hype surrounding this book and my conflicted feelings about it. Not to mention it took me about a year just to finish it. 
 The idea of Red Queen had so much potential and made this book so interesting to pick up. Don't get me wrong you could definitely compare to countless other book, but it had its own little twist. The powers of the silvers were a bit vague and left me wondering a lot. But I'm willing to let things slide since it is the first book in the series. 
 Likes: 
 I liked all the different powers the silvers had, it helped build up the story and keep track of what families had what abilities. The build up and suspense was fun and what made me keep reading. The little things Mare found about not only about herself but others like her and things the silvers were trying to cover up. There was some really great action especially at the end. I think Victoria Aveyard does a great job describing fight scenes, I almost didn't have to use my imagination at all. I really liked Cal's character. He was not perfect and will surely have a lot to learn and grow from, but he is my favorite. I even liked his relationship wit his brother Maven. 
 Dislikes: 
 I'm just gonna come and say I did not the MC Mare at all. Not one bit. She was completely dumb the entire book. I understood her hatred for the silvers, but I could not understand that if she hated them so much why does she trust Maven so much. He is a silver, no matter if he feels shunned by his father, that does not make you the same. She trusted him so quickly and easily and fell in love with him? It made no sense. I still liked Maven, he was great to Mare so I could see how she would fall for him, they were pretty great together. There are plenty of characters to dislike in this book, but its expected. 
 I think this book fell flat in a lot of ways. I seriously put this book down for almost a year before I just decided to get it over with. The totally surprising twist at the end was not all that surprising as people made it out to be. The only thing that was surprising was how truly evil the Queen and some other silvers were. But it did make the end really interesting. The second twist at the end was a nice twist though. 
 I do hope this book gets better. The first book in a series is not always the best one and is mainly a setup anyways. I look forward to reading the rest of this series.