Title: Steel Scars
(Red Queen #0.2)
Author: Victoria Aveyard
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Dystopia
First published: January 5th 2016
Finished reading: March 2nd 2016
Pages: 100
“Information is more dangerous than any weapon we possess. We learned that early, after decades of failed uprisings, all laid low by one captured Red in the hands of a Silver whisper.”
After not enjoying the first novella, I wasn’t sure whether to pick up Steel Scars or not. I decided to give it a go anyway since I already had a copy ready… This second novella turned out to be slightly better than Queen Song, but not by much. There is a lot more action involved in this story, but it still reads a bit slow. The fact that Farley is actually quite a boring character and didn’t manage to convince me didn’t really help either… And all those decoded messages really slowed down the pace as well. Imagine having to read a similar message to the one below over and over again…
If it would have been only a couple of times, the structure probably wouldn’t have bothered me, but after seeing one too many it became really annoying. Combine this with a slow pace and bland characters (except for Shade and Mare Barrow), and it becomes clear I wouldn’t really recommend reading this novella either.
Farley has been raised to be strong and the fact that she is a girl doesn’t hold her back in participating in all kinds of dangerous missions to help the rebellion. People who underestimate her will soon discover her real strength… But still, her new mission to help start the rebellion in Norta is more difficult that she had initially thought. Farley will have to enter the city to find new recruits and help for the rebellion, including black market traders, smugglers and other people that don’t have anything left to lose. Soon she will find someone who will turn out to be the key to the success of their rebellion… Or at least that is what they hope for.
Like I said before, Steel Scars was slightly better than Queen Song, but that doesn’t take away that both novellas are not nearly as good as the actual series. Slow-paced with not that interesting characters and in the case of Steel Scars prose that becomes annoying; if you ask me, I would suggest definitely skipping the novellas and start reading Red Queen straight away. You won’t be missing anything that important…
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