Red Queen / Victoria Aveyard / 383 pgs

I just finished the first book in Victoria Aveyard's YA dystopia series. Red Queen has a lot of elements that other books in the genre have. Poor girl, Mare Barrow, is part of a group of people in the future who are oppressed by the elite. In this case, the oppression is due to some sort of human evolution that has changed the color of blood in certain people to silver. The silver-bloods are also blessed with X-Men type powers. Some can control fire, some can control water, some can turn invisible, some have superhuman strength, some can heal, some can control people with their thoughts, etc. These superhuman powers, however, seem to be family traits, so one family is full of water-controllers, while the other family is full of healers, and so on. The king of Norte and his two sons are fire-controllers. The Reds, those with red blood, are just normal humans who slave for the kingdom. Mare, it turns out, is something new, a Red with the power to control electricity. Like a lot of other books in this genre, there's a bit of a love triangle, or quadrangle, There's revolution and violence. There's infiltration and betrayal. It's Hunger Games mixed with Divergent mixed with Red Rising mixed with Cinder.

Despite a lot of YA dystopian tropes being thrown about, I found the series rather new too. I liked the twist at the end and it made me curious to read the next book. For those who love the books I mentioned above, I think you'll enjoy this one too, even if some of the elements are the same.