Slight Spoiler Review: War Storm by Victoria Aveyard

 

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Synopsis:

    War Storm is the fourth and final installment of the Red Queen Series by Victoria Aveyard. It picks up almost immediately after King’s Cage. Mare, the Reds, and other Newbloods are determined to finally take down the corrupt monarchy at the heart of the Kingdom of Norta. In order to do this, they must ally with Cal and his strong Silver Allies. But with different visions for the path ahead, will the free future that Mare and the rebels fought for, truly come to pass?

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    Before diving into my review, please note that it is based on my opinion of the book. As you consider my thoughts, remember that you are allowed to have different feelings about this book. If you haven't read it yet, feel free to pick up a copy and form your own opinion on it. As War Storm is the final book in a series, there will be some mild spoilers included in the review.

Content Warnings: Violence, Death, Blood, Gore, Grief, Confinement.

Note: This book contains many violent scenes with lots of bloodshed, please be advised before proceeding.

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 Review: 

    First of all, I just wanted to begin by mentioning that I finished this back in October, so almost half a year ago. I am only just now getting around to writing this review, but I have jogged my memory about the main events that occur and gone back to my notes describing how I felt about the book whilst reading. War Storm picks up pretty much where King's Cage leaves off. The beginning of the book was quite action-packed with some major battle scenes facing off against Maven. It had quite an exciting and promising start, but sadly, did not fulfill its potential.  Throughout much of the middle of the book, while many events were happening, it still felt like the plot was not moving forward toward the climax and eventual conclusion. It shifted from being fast-paced at the beginning to very slow-paced in the middle to a very fast-paced and rushed ending. In other words, it just felt like the pacing wasn't well executed throughout the novel which made some areas feel very dull and other interesting parts too rushed. 

    In the novel, there are a total of 5 points of view or perspectives. We finally get to learn more about the Lakelanders who have been alluded to in all the previous 3 books. I loved learning about the motivations of the Lakelander Queen and Princesses. I just wish more of their development had been spread out throughout the series instead of being mainly concentrated in the final book. Sprinkling in this information throughout the other books could have helped Aveyard maintain a greater focus on the main plot in this final book while also adding another compelling side plot to enrich the middle novels in the series. I like how we got the Princess of the Landlake's perspective in this book and got to really understand things from an outsider's point of view. 

    However, it was often difficult to keep track of the different perspectives because there were so many points of view. It is very hard to pull off a multi-perspective book that has more than two to three POVs, each of the different points of view have to be very distinct in order for it to be successful. A couple of the POVs in this book were too similar which made things confusing. Another problem with all of the perspectives in this book was that they felt very unbalanced resulting in greater character development for some characters while others were more neglected. There was just such a large main cast of characters, that it was impossible for Aveyard to properly develop all of the characters throughout the story. By the end, I didn't really feel connected to any of the characters, even ones I had previously been invested in, in earlier books. 

    The ending of the novel was honestly a bit anticlimactic and pretty much what can be expected for a generic YA fantasy series. I did appreciate the fact that Mare and Cal didn't just end up together, leaving the story with a neatly wrapped bow. Instead, Mare, Cal, and the other main characters have to deal with all of the effects and trauma of the events that happened throughout the series. It just felt like the ending came so quickly with little time for falling action between the climax and the end of the story. It was just expected and quite underwhelming in my opinion. 

    Overall, I didn't find much to love about this book. While there were some interesting parts to the plot, these areas felt rushed over and there was a lot of slow-paced development throughout the novel that was not particularly interesting. This book felt like it suffered middle book syndrome, despite being a series finale. There were a lot of points of view that made things a bit confusing and made the character development feel unbalanced/uneven. Also, the story's ending felt a bit generic and anticlimactic though it had a slightly unexpected twist. It just felt like this book showed great potential at the beginning, but failed at fulfilling it, and was poorly executed.

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

Author: Victoria Aveyard

Genre: YA Fantasy 

Publisher: Harper Collins