Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard

440 pages

"If there's one thing Mare Barrow knows, it's that she's different. Mare Barrow's blood is red--the color of common folk--but her Silver ability, the power to control lightning, has turned her into a weapon that the royal court tries to control.

The crown calls her an impossibility, a fake, but as she makes her escape from Maven, the prince--the friend--who betrayed her, Mare uncovers something startling: She is not the only one of her kind.

Pursued by Maven, now a vindictive king, Mare sets out to find and recruit other Red-and-Silver fighters to join in the struggle against her oppressors.

But Mare finds herself on a deadly path, at risk of becoming exactly the kind of monster she is trying to defeat.

Will she shatter under the weight of the lives that are the cost of rebellion? Or have treachery and betrayal hardened her forever?" -Dust Jacket

This is the second book in the Red Queen series. The ending really saved the whole book for me because for most of the book I found Mare to be annoyingly whiny and selfish. There's a lot of internal dialogue that gets so repetitive and obnoxious. She's got two great guys, three if you count her brother Shade, who do everything they can to help her and save her from herself and yet she keeps pushing them away, blaming them, or dismissing them. I think the author intentionally makes her unlikable so that what she does at the end of the book can redeem her and make you want to read the next book.

Maven is truly evil and yet Mare mourns the boy she thought he was and misses him. Cal misses the brother he once knew and they both want to kill him. There are some new characters introduced in this book and most of them have conveniently helpful powers. There's also a mysterious man who can see the future yet only offers very vague advice. Once Mare and her team start rescuing "newbloods," it reminded me of X-Men and bringing mutants to the school to save them and train them. Cal's like the Professor and Mare's like Magneto. She's out of control a lot of the time. She doesn't think through a lot of her actions and their consequences and then once she acts she spends a ton of time agonizing over the cost of her choices and then it's almost like she can't take responsibility or it will break her so she finds other people to blame. Rinse and repeat.

{Spoilers}

The book starts where Red Queen left off, with the Scarlet Guard rescuing Cal and Mare from execution. Cal is taken prisoner by the Scarlet Guard. They escape back to the ruins of Naercy only to face an aerial assault and Silvers on the ground. Mare's brother Shade, once thought to be dead, is alive and he has the ability to jump long distances and teleport to other places. He helps them escape to the sea where a submarine-type vessel awaits that takes them to the island of Tuck and a Colonel, who it turns out is Farley's dad, but there's no love lost between the two. Mare is reunited with her family who have escaped to Tuck.

Mare realizes that the Colonel is afraid of the newbloods and has locked Cal up in an underground bunker. She and Kilorn attempt to rescue him and it looks like Kilorn betrays her when he locks her in the cell with Cal. He's really helping them and breaks them out later on once they have the list of newbloods. They steal a jet and go off to rescue the people on the list who are Reds with Silver abilities. Maven is also hunting for the newbloods and when he beats Mare there he kills them and leaves notes behind for her telling her that he'll stop killing people if she comes back to him. She vows that she never will. She hides the notes from Cal but he knows that she has them and reads them when she thinks no one is watching. During one of their encounters with Maven, he uses a machine on her called a sounder that turns her own powers against her and leaves her with lightning scars and an "M" branded onto her skin. It nearly kills her and knocks her out for days, during which both Kilorn and Cal worry that she won't wake up.

Mare, Cal, Kilorn, Farley and Shade take the newbloods to a hideout in the mountains where they train them and help them master their abilities. On a mission to rescue more, they meet a man named Jon who can see the future and he tells them that they are facing a trap and that they must go to a lake and protect what they find there. What they find there is a girl named Cameron who can shut down the abilities of newbloods. She almost kills Mare because she doesn't know how to control herself. She's escaped from the prison where Maven and Queen Elara are holding Reds and Silvers who don't support the crown. Mare decides that they have to storm the prison and rescue the prisoners. They have a newblood named Nanny who can turn herself into anyone so she turns into Maven and they go to the prison. Mare loses control of herself and slaughters guards who were begging for mercy which makes Cal keep his distance. She also kills the queen. During their escape, Shade is killed while trying to save Mare. He and Farley are together and it alludes to the fact that Farley is pregnant. She's obviously heartbroken. Mare tells everyone that they're flying back to Tuck where she and the Colonel hatch a plan to save the 5,000 children who are being marched to the front lines and to also start a civil war by showing a video of the dead queen and inciting people to rise up against Maven. Throughout the whole book there's reference to "Command" which are the real people in charge but we never meet them. We do meet twins who come from a faraway republic where they say newbloods can live in peace. They want Mare to come and fight with them and offer the rest of them sanctuary. Mare realizes that there's a catch and that helping them might turn into replacing a Silver king with a newblood one which might not be any better.

Cal doesn't like what Mare's doing, but he also wants to save her from herself so he says he'll go with her. During their flight to the Choke, Maven has magnetrons bring down the jet. It turns into a cage as it falls from the sky. Cameron does her best to stop them but there are too many for her. Mare rushes at the magnetrons and they let her out of the cage where a strongarm is waiting to contain her. The magnetrons manipulate the cage so that everyone is shackled. Cal tries to burn through the bars with his fire but he's knocked unconscious. When Maven shows up, Mare realizes that she has to save Kilorn and Cal at any cost and so she makes a deal with Maven: she'll be his prisoner if he lets the others live. The epilogue is Mare being tortured into unconsciousness by the sounder day after day. Eventually Maven has her brought to the square where people can see her broken and controlled by him. He puts a collar on her that has a leash and forces her to kneel before him. He says that she put his mother on display and he will do the same to her. And that's where it ends!

Mare really doesn't appreciate what she has as far as friends go. Maven was a friend and potential husband to her in the first book and so his betrayal is that much harder for Mare. Cal has also been betrayed by her as well as betrayed her and yet they can't seem to let each other go. They are able to calm each other and they find comfort in each other's arms to chase away the nightmares they each face at night. They love each other but Mare is way too stubborn to admit it and to accept that Cal isn't going anywhere. She keeps thinking that he's going to leave her and that his loyalties will shift. I really like Cal. He's been forced to kill his father by the queen and he's lost his mother as well. He's been broken in so many ways and yet he still maintains his humanity and morality. I also really like Kilorn. Kilorn is her childhood friend who also loves her. He has no special abilities and so she's always trying to protect him which makes him angry. He's the first to forgive her for what she does at the prison and by the end she realizes that he should be able to make his own decisions and risk his own life.

I think Mare is a lot like Katniss. She's a young teenager who's traumatized by what she has to do and go through and so she acts in a way that to the reader seems irrational, but I'm not sure how anyone would cope with all of that and stay sane. She doesn't want to be a leader but she's thrust into that role. I had to remind myself of that throughout the book so that I didn't hate her. But, when she realizes that the only way to save her friends is to do the one thing she has vowed never to do--go back to Maven--she redeems herself big time. And then when you read what he subjects her to you can't help but feel incredibly sorry for her...and anxious for Cal and Kilorn to come and save her and destroy Maven.