A review by lemon_
Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard

1.0

Spoilers below.

I just fucking can't. This series so so dumb, so predictable, and can you say exposition? holy fuck, the amount of times moron barrow feels the need to pity herself and act like she's the only one who has trauma in the world ("I won't let maven break Cal like he's broken me" - are you fucking kidding me? You think you're more traumatized by the betrayal of Maven than Cal, his brother , Cal, who was forced to murder his own father by maven..... SHUT UP, moron.)

I'm convinced Aveyard couldn't make a more unlikeable, selfish, self-righteous main character if she tried. Little miss whiney spend SO MUCH TIME saying she doesn't trust anyone and - oh look, she's trusting [person who betrayed her] again two pages later. and then she's "shocked" and "traumatized" again when more betrayals happen.

how is it that such an unlikeable bitch gets every male in a mile radius to fall in love with her? really men, tell me what you see in her? and to all of the maven apologists here, you realize the guy actually murdered babies just to try to spook moron barrow here, right? and someone needs to tell little miss barrow here that she's not that smart. Seriously, who is she to tell ANYONE "you can't join the scarlet guard because i said so, because it's dangerous. You can't go do this or that because it's dangerous. You can't do anything because I don't think you're capable of doing it" blah blah blah. Mare Barrow is less capable, less smart, and less likeable than almost anyone in the book, and yet somehow she's put at the head of All Things Important. Please. Let me go barf in a corner.

This series is trying so hard to be "woke" that it falls so incredibly flat and tone deaf. It's reductive and just plain bad. Even as pulp reading, just-for-fun reading, this has no value.