Glass Sword (Audiobook) by Victoria Aveyard

Glass Sword (Red Queen #2)

by Victoria Aveyard 

If there’s one thing Mare Barrow knows, it’s that she’s different.

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?

The electrifying next installment in the Red Queen series escalates the struggle between the growing rebel army and the blood-segregated world they’ve always known—and pits Mare against the darkness that has grown in her soul.

Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins  Narrated By Amanda Dolan Series: Red Queen, Book 2 Release Date: 02-09-16

I received a review copy from readingteen.net

What surprised me most about this story was how dark it got. The choices that had to be made and especially the inhumane actions that Maven takes as king actually shocked me. I don't think that the first book in the series really touched on how brutal this kingdom had become.

This story travels a lot, which I loved. We get a visual on what the people and country is like outside of the Mansions of the first book. There were only a few places along the way that I felt slowed in the story. It has a lot of fighting, killing, arguments that really push the plot forward and don't leave a lot of down time. Often through the journey I could not help but find myself remembering what I felt while reading the in the Hunger Games series. All of the actions in this book are leading up to a war and from what came out of this book, I would not be surprised to see book three take on some very gruesome scenes.

As the group begins to find some of the other Red's with powers I thought it was very intuitive of the author to include some of the most interesting powers. There were some I thought  I could not live without, some I would have never thought of...ever. And maybe a few that had me questioning how that power might be used in the third book.

It's very difficult for me to say that any of the characters actually showed "growth" in this part of the story. A lot of things have changed in their lives and all of their relationships change with it. For the most part, these situations really brought out the negative in these characters. I was constantly finding myself not trusting anybody and almost hating on Mare for some of her decisions. Part of the book's focus is also "trust no one" and this story really lives up to that quote. There is so much that happens in this story that it is a lot to take in, your mind will be processing the actions of these characters for days, it stuck in my head like glue.

The narrator does a fantastic job with this story. A wonderful voice that is often soothing, evokes great emotion and good pacing. Amanda Dolan is somebody that I would recommend you look for in an audiobook narrator I recommend her absolutely.