War Storm (Red Queen, 4) Paperback – March 17, 2020

I enjoyed the Red Queen series. Overall, 4/5 stars. The world was fantastic, the plot great, but at times I skipped over the action scenes. I could've used more plot between the characters and less plot driven story. Toward the end, really starting in book 3, there was too much internal narration and introspection.

I am a huge MareCal shipper and I even made a playlist for them because I could not get over how King’s Cage ended. I have this insane crush on Cal, no matter how imperfect he is and how frustrating some of his decisions might be. I love his character so much because he is so flawed and it makes him closer to reality. I really admire Victoria for writing her characters as flawed as they are. You get torn between cursing them for being stupid and hoping the best for them. For me, the appeal of a story lies heavily on whether you like the characters or not. Writing imperfect characters — which you can't help but hate sometimes — and still making readers root for them is impressive.I have never felt more anxious over the ending of a book as I did for this. If I’m being honest, there’s only two characters I really care about in this series, Mare and Cal. Most especially Cal. I think I’ve never cared for any fictional character as much as I did for Cal and I have no idea why. This book was torture for me. Every accidental touch, every stolen glance had me dying. It set me on edge, afraid for what might happen because I wouldn’t put it past Victoria to kill someone.War Storm is written in the following POVs:Mare - I love seeing the story through her eyes. She did not annoy me in this book, thank God.Cal - Finally. I did not read any spoilers and his POV comes at a later part in the book so I was pleasantly surprised. I wanted to see how the world looks in his eyes and I wish the book had more of it. :(Maven - Maven is the kind of character you can never hate, no matter what he did. His POV made me feel so much sympathy for him and it’s heartbreaking how he can’t help to be the way he is. He deserved better.Evangeline - Although I liked some parts of her POV (and what she did to Mare and Cal *winks*), I don’t like her enough for her personal life to interest me. I feel that her relationship with Elane, especially their moments, feels a bit forced.Iris - She is another character I do not care about. I guess Victoria felt the need for her POV to tell the other side of the story.In my opinion, it would have been enough if it only had Mare, Cal, and Maven's POV. Having Iris and Evangeline's POV showed too many sides of the story. The plot would have been more surprising if we did not know what they were planning.You might wonder why I gave this book four stars even though I was so invested in the characters and the story. As much as I love this series, I can’t ignore the flaws in this book. Although I can’t say it is dragging, I feel that it isn’t fast enough. If I could describe it in one word, somehow, it seems.. sluggish . And the ending is a bit anticlimactic. It certainly affected me in some way and I still have a hard time moving on but I have my biases. If I look at it objectively, it is not enough.

I had to pause reading this book so many times because I didn’t want it to end. Such brilliant writing & imagery used, along with character development, suspense and the varying POV’s from the different protagonists. Truly one of my favorite series and wish for another 600+ pager. Brilliance.

This book had a lot of action and was not predictable, and I like that about books. I had no idea what would happen with the war. Although this is the last book of the series, I really feel like the author left open the possibility for another one. Stories were left open. The ending was pretty realistic, not corny or fairytale-ish, as in Mare and Cal getting married and living happily ever after as king and queen. The saga was left open for more--the Lakelanders only retreated, but they will be back. Norta is a hot mess right now that will take years to sort out. There are more stories here to be told. Mare and Cal still love each other, but need time apart. Maven was a good villain, irredeemable, and just hollow. If the author wanted to, she could continue with another series about the aftermath of this war and give the fans the ending they want--with Mare and Cal finding their way back to each other, even if it is years later. The storyline with Maven is finished, but I would like another to begin. Overall, I found the book very entertaining, and I enjoyed reading the viewpoints of several main characters.

I finally made it to the end of Victoria Aveyard's Red Queen series with War Storm! War Storm brings us to the epic conclusion of this quartet and it was something all right! I'll admit, I was struggling a bit with this series as I finished it up, there was so much described or happening that did nothing to move the story forward. I felt like things were being drawn out to create that long epic fantasy feel you get with the long epic fantasy reads. It's not to say I didn't enjoy the book as a whole. I did like it and I plan to read more from Victoria as she writes, but I have to say, this book would've been just as exciting with about half the pages.War is coming, that much we all know. The regions are becoming divided. Everyone has their own idea on how the status quo between Reds and Silvers should be. Mare, along with the Scarlet Guard are wanting to change that and have more rights for Reds. Cal is now readying himself to be the true king once more, they will have to remove Maven from the throne and Mare worries that Cal just wants things to go back to the way they were before, with Reds being subservient to the Silvers.Before much can be done, Mare, Cal, and his once again fiancee, Evangeline must gain recruits to help them in the war to come against Maven. But that's only the beginning of their journey in this one as the upcoming battle is going to take everything and everyone they have in their arsenal to come out the victor.This book was epic in a sense that so much was trying to be done with the state of things in the world which Mare lives in. Fighting for equality and the rights of Reds against their oppressing Silvers. I mean, at one point Silvers were complaining about having to cook their own meals and the lack of flavor they had since the Reds up and left them. I guess that's "royalty" for you that that was such a big deal for them. Cal's sort of flip-flop stance on the whole matter didn't really endear him to me either. He wanted things to stay the way they are but with exceptions and trying to be more fair to Reds, yet still not giving them better opportunities.Needless to say, this book got pretty political in the fantasy sense. Perhaps that's why I felt like things were taking so long to move forward. Though pacing was another issue I had with this book. Things just didn't move forward at a fast pace. Every moment was analyzed down to a conversation, to a warmup battle, to a small battle and beyond. I just felt like you could still get the points across with less description and time spent on analyzing every angle.The relationship between Mare and Cal only continued to worsen in this one it seems. What with Cal readying to be king again and not take much of a stance on bettering things for Reds. You can imagine the hurt Mare was going through, but naturally that didn't stop the two from having their moments together. That kind of annoyed me too. I mean, you hate the guy because he's not willing to give better opportunities for your people, yet when things get dangerous you go back to wanting to be with him? It just ruffled my feathers you could say. Mare and Cal are definitely one of those couples that go hot and cold.We did get more points of view in this one, Cameron kind of fizzled out it seemed in this story, but we get Evangeline, Mare, Cal, MAVEN, and Iris. I was particularly excited to get Maven's point of view, but alas, there wasn't much from him. Maybe 2 chapters? I just wanted to know what this boy was thinking and though he was villainous and abhorrent in his treatment of Mare, I sometimes found myself feeling sorry for the guy. It was few and far between, mostly in teeny tiny increments that didn't last longer than 2 seconds, but there it is.The ending was something that left me a little conflicted. Things are mostly resolved, we know where mostly everyone is at and where things are going for them...except, Mare. I mean we got most of that but we don't really know what her future will entail beside a few idealistic hopes and dreams. I guess I was just hoping for a little more along the lines of "happily ever after" after all the pain and turmoil that Mare endured, but it's mostly left up to the reader to imagine where Mare's path will take her.Overall, War Storm was an exciting read and gives a decent conclusion to the series. There's room for more, I suppose there's always room for more. While I was left a little heartbroken over a few matters here and there, it was still a pretty good read. I just wish things could have been paced out a little better to make the pages really fly.Overall Rating 3/5 stars

Good condition with no tears. Really pretty hard cover.