This review contains spoilers for the first book. Proceed with caution.

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Wow. Wow.

I'm be honest from here: until the very last chapters, this was a 3 star book for me, maybe a 3.5. With that ending? That deserves a 10 star rating all on its own. So I'm going with 4.

Kneel or bleed indeed.

Don't worry, I'm not going to talk about the ending. You're not getting any spoilers from me, not about this book. It would truly spoil your reading. Let's talk about what really matters—the story, the bad, and the really good.

[b:Glass Sword|23174274|Glass Sword (Red Queen, #2)|Victoria Aveyard|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1436460934s/23174274.jpg|42720997]Glass Sword starts off right where [b:Red Queen|22328546|Red Queen (Red Queen, #1)|Victoria Aveyard|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1449778912s/22328546.jpg|25037051]Red Queen ended. We're on an Undertrain, Shade is alive, Mare had just woken up, and Cal was made prisoner. Farley takes them all to an island where Cal remains jailed, Kilorn gives me a heart attack, and Mare is feared by everyone she meets, and so on.

This is mainly a recruitment book. The first half is spent searching the country for newbloods—the name given to Reds with Silver abilities—and all the trouble that comes with it. While it was awesome to see so many talented people with so many cool powers, it did feel at times like the powers were a bit too convenient, and that some newbloods were just token characters to win a fight before disappearing from the map. I understand it's not easy to handle so many new characters in a short period of time, but I do wish Victoria had spent just a few more paragraphs developing some of them, like Ketha and Gareth.

The strength of this book is on Mare. She has become the mastermind and manipulator she showed signs of in [b:Red Queen|22328546|Red Queen (Red Queen, #1)|Victoria Aveyard|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1449778912s/22328546.jpg|25037051]Red Queen. It was awesome to see. She's not afraid of making the hard choices, sometimes to a dear cost, but she marches on with the strength of a general.

The girl I see is both familiar and foreign, Mare, Mareena, the lightning girl, the Red Queen, and no one at all. She does not look afraid. She looks carved of stone, with severe features, hair braided tight to her head, and a tangle of scars on her neck. She is not seventeen, but ageless, Silver but not, Red but not, human—but not. A banner of the Scarlet Guard, a face on a wanted poster, a prince's downfall, a thief... a killer.

But, at the same time that's she kicks ass, Mare is also such a whiny protagonist. Victoria said it herself, calling her "whiny pikachu", and I'm still laughing about it. It's "I can't be with Cal, we've hurt each other too much, it would only be a distraction", but it's also "I'm too cold without Cal to keep me warm" and on and on and on. It's not so constant that it's too annoying, but sometimes I just want my narrators to stop feeling sorry for themselves and do something, you know.

Which Mare, in her defence, does. Oh, does she kick some ass here. When she's got her mind in the right place, she is unstoppable, and that's when I love her the best.

I see you as you could become, no longer the lightning, but the storm. The storm that will swallow the world entire.

In Act II, the timing is a bit off. As Mare herself says, there is fight after fight for some passages, but then there is a long period of not much happening at all except for Mare's internal monologue. It felt a bit unbalanced, unlike Red Queen when every scene fit exactly where it was. This gets better once we hit the climax and, as I've mentioned, the last few chapters are perfection.

Now, the love triangle. If you are like me, you do not stand love triangles, and I must say I was plesantly surprised by how it was handed in the [b:Red Queen|22328546|Red Queen (Red Queen, #1)|Victoria Aveyard|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1449778912s/22328546.jpg|25037051]Red Queen. And it's almost entired gone now, safe a few mentions of Mare having difficult letting go of the boy she thought she knew (aka Maven), totally understandable. I'm actually glad she and Cal didn't completely forget about Maven or had only hatred for them. When you love someone, no matter what they do to you, sometimes it is hard to let go of the person you thought you loved, and this is shown very clearly here.

Also, for anyone worrying about a new love triangle between Mare, Cal and Kilorn, worry no longer. There's a bit of uncorrespondent love there, but Kilorn doesn't act like the friendzoned jerk because, seriously, there more pressing matters than a broken heart. On a side note, I really love his and Mare's friendship. It's not sugarcolted and there were times when I thought they were done, but they get each other like no other. Really, #friendshipgoals.

I was particularly pleased with the emphasis on diversity in the book. There are hints in Red Queen that not every character is the stardand white hero/villain, but in Glass Sword Victoria went all out with description to ensure everyone understood that this world is not a white supremacy.. Lovely to see.

It does continue to borrow tropes from other works, one in particular at the end that was very blatant to me, but it didn't take away from the reading to me. The story is original enough to hold its own ground IMO.

Just on more thing. If you've read the book, please come cry with me about you-know-who's death. I felt it was coming, but, god. I was so upset.

... I so want to quote the last sentense here. So much. But I will contain myself and give you the metaphor for the title, which basically sums up what's going on with Mare in this book.

If I am a sword, I am a sword made of glass, and I feel myself beginning to shatter.