Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard (HarperTeen, February 2016)
Victoria Aveyard burst onto the scene in 2015, with the publication of her first novel, Red Queen. The young adult fantasy novel was praised for filling the void that the completion of both the Hunger Games and Divergent series had left. One part superhero saga, one part dystopian fiction, the series centers around a young girl, Mare Barrow. Mare is a “red,” so named for the color of her blood, a lower-class citizen. The reds are ordinary, their lives only meant for servitude, while the silvers—their aristocratic counterparts—all have superpowers, which make it all-too-easy for them to abuse the reds and stamp down any rebellion.
Glass Sword is the second book in the series. By the time this book begins, Mare has realized she is different: she is red, but she has powers. Mare and Cal, the former Prince who has been framed for murdering his father, are on the run from the new monarchy. It’s Hunger Games meets Game of Thrones meets the Avengers. It’s brilliant. The premise of this book alone makes it impossible to put down; Aveyard keeps the pace clipping along, deftly managing to weave in moments of character growth and loss among intense action scenes. The language is gritty and compelling, overloading the senses. It’s not lit-fic, to be sure, but it still gives the reader plenty of pull quotes, like:
“It isn’t hard to let people die when their deaths give life to something else.”
And:
“We seem weak because we want to.”
The conceit of this book is wonderful unto itself, but what really makes it shine is our heroine, Mare Barrow. At this point in Mare’s journey, she is no longer timid, no longer afraid of either the silvers or her own power. Mare is allowed to be something we rarely see in young adult literature: Mare is ruthless. There are several points in the novel where Mare is given a choice: grand mercy upon those who had previously used or hurt her, or kill them. Mare slaughters them. It’s terrifying. It’s wonderful. Now don’t get me wrong—obviously, I’m not endorsing mass murder. But Mare has the same kind of imperfections that I loved in Katniss. Katniss was allowed to be blunt and unfriendly. Mare is allowed to be merciless, in a way that eventually pushes away those who love her. It’s rare to see a female character who is granted that much power, and whose femininity doesn’t force them into a box of compassion or remorse. There are moments where we see Mare go completely off the deep end, and those are some of the most powerful moments in the book.
Another triumph of Glass Sword is in its romantic development. Aveyard knows her genre. She knows that many young adult series force a love triangle. She uses this to bait the reader into believing not one but multiple love triangles are developing at any point in the series… and then she completely shatters our expectations. Most of Glass Sword felt as if it was building to a romantic relationship between Mare and her best friend (spoiler alert), Kilorn. Throughout the entire build-up, I was irritated, sad that another YA author was forcing a relationship that none of the readers had asked for. And then, the moment arrived: Kilorn confessed his love and… Mare turned him down. Bluntly. Honestly. Beautifully. There’s romance in this novel. There’s so much tension I could scream. And yet I can honestly say that I have no idea who—if anyone—Mare is going to end up with. And I love it.
But of course, not all series are perfect. Though the romance of Glass Sword was unpredictable, I was disheartened by how much of the rest of the novel was. It didn’t just fill the void that Hunger Games left, it emulated the formula it presented almost to a T. Book one: present the circumstances of your dystopia, but keep your character isolated (in Hunger Games, Katniss was in the arena; in Red Queen, Mare spent most of her time trapped in the palace). Book two: break them out of isolation and set up a rebellion. Both series center around bringing down a corrupt government that divides people into a binary of classes. Both series’ heroines become scapegoats of the rebellion—while Katniss is called the Mockingjay, Mare is the Lightning Queen. Both series highlight the faults of the rebellion as well as its triumphs—they warn that victory might not be as clean-cut as it appears.
It’s a formula that works, to be sure. Overall, I did enjoy this book. But by the end, there was a part of me that still felt dissatisfied. I felt as if I had read this book before.
Is dystopia “over”? How do you find newness when your favorite genres seem exhausted?
