Book Review :: King’s Cage, by Victoria Aveyard

King's Cage by Victoria Aveyard
Series: Red Queen #3
Also in this series: Glass Sword, Red Queen, Cruel Crown, War Storm, Broken Throne
Published by Hachette NZ
on February 9th 2017
Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 507
Source: Hachette Publishing NZ
Find at Hachette NZ
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Mare Barrow is a prisoner, powerless without her lightning, tormented by her lethal mistakes. She lives at the mercy of a boy she once loved, a boy made of lies and betrayal.

Now a king, Maven Calore continues weaving his dead mother's web in an attempt to maintain control over his country—and his prisoner.As Mare bears the weight of Silent Stone in the palace, her once-ragtag band of newbloods and Reds continue organizing, training, and expanding. They prepare for war, no longer able to linger in the shadows. And Cal, the exiled prince with his own claim on Mare's heart, will stop at nothing to bring her back.

When blood turns on blood, and ability on ability, there may be no one left to put out the fire—leaving Norta as Mare knows it to burn all the way down.

Last updated on 7 June 2022

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What is King’s Cage, by Victoria Aveyard about?

In King’s Cage, Mare is imprisoned under Maven’s orders, forced to trail behind him and other noble Silvers, trapped in manacles and her lighting suppressed. She’s trapped in a – yup – King’s cage, and she can’t get out.

Meanwhile, the Scarlet Guard are on the move, taking over cities and wreaking havoc where they can. Prince Cal is working with Cameron, with Farley, with Mare’s family to bring down the segregation of of the Silver/Red casts, finding and training up Newbloods – Reds with Silver abilities.

Their stories finally collide in a raid on King Maven’s palace, as the Scarlet Guard rescue and free Mare. She joins them in their rebellion as they plan to take down Maven and destroy his rule once and for all.

“Now I’m in a king’s cage. But so is he. My chains are Silent Stone. His is the crown.”

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My thoughts on King’s Cage

More Maven, Evangeline’s POV and the last maybe third or even quarter of this book saved it for me. I really liked Red Queen and Glass Sword, but King’s Cage was a bit of a disappointment for me.

The entire first two thirds, or even possibly three quarters were just boring. Mare is stuck in the palace with Maven pushing her around, getting upset that she can’t work her lighting, being all ‘I wonder where Cal is’, ‘Oh the Scarlet Guard’, and ‘I hate Maven’, and the only reprieve from that is reading Cameron’s point of view from inside the Scarlet Guard. Out of all the characters to have a second POV, I didn’t want it to be Cameron. She was rescued in the last book, but I never really connected with her, didn’t really care for her. I would have preferred a different character’s POV from that aspect of the story, perhaps even Cal himself.

Speaking of POVs. I really did enjoy Evangeline’s point of view. I’ve always liked Evangeline. She’s the Silver who always seemed to me like she was up to something. She was never quite with Maven and what he stood for 100%, and that intrigued me. It was really great having her point of view, even for just the few chapters.

Plot wise, the book was meh. As I mentioned, it wasn’t until the very end that it actually picked up and became interesting for me. The majority of the book I felt was Mare being all ‘woe is me’, and while that’s understandable, I didn’t need an entire book of it. It was at the end when she’s out and she’s meeting the other Newbloods, and they start training and fighting that it become interesting for me. And yet, I was confused because there was only mere chapters left and it felt like it was the beginning of the book and not the end. It was even more confusing when I got to the end and thought ‘well that’s not a way to end a series’ and then I realised it wasn’t actually the last book like I thought it was.

Dear people of the world, King’s Cage isn’t the final book in the series. *mind blown*

It does make the ending slightly more understandable now, but it doesn’t really address the fact that the majority of the book was just meh.

So why I have I given it 3 stars and not less? 3 reasons (and so therefore 3 stars). 1: Maven was in it way more than the last book, and while I enjoyed Glass Sword more than King’s Cage, it was great having Maven back in this one. 2: Evangeline’s point of view was indeed, very good and refreshing. And 3: the end, when it finally picked up, was actually rather good.

Despite my thoughts on this the third in the Red Queen series, I will definitely be reading the next book, and I hope that that is better than this one.

Have you read King’s Cage yet? What did you think? 

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Thank you to Hachette Publishing who sent me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.