Books like Red Queen
What should you read after Victoria Aveyard’s novel? It depends on what you loved most about it.
- Victoria Aveyard
- 2015
- YA fantasy
What did you love about it?
Choosing one reorders everything below.
Best books to read after Red Queen
Ranked overall. Pick what you loved above to re-rank them.
Best overall matchThrone of Glass
Sarah J. Maas
An assassin dragged into a royal competition, two princes, and a court where everyone is playing something. The nearest thing to Red Queen's exact recipe.
- Arena trials and court politics
- Princes on both sides
- A thief passing as nobility
- Series runs to eight books
Great matchThe Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins
The class divide made brutal and public, with a girl from the bottom paraded as something she isn't. Everything Red Queen borrows, done first and done better.
- Blood that decides your class
- Rebellion brewing
- A thief passing as nobility
- No magic or powers
Great matchGraceling
Kristin Cashore
A girl whose gift makes her a weapon for a king she is starting to hate. Cashore writes a far more grounded heroine, and the romance never swallows the book.
- Blood that decides your class
- Arena trials and court politics
- Rebellion brewing
- Slower, more travel-heavy
Great matchAn Ember in the Ashes
Sabaa Tahir
A slave girl spying inside a military academy and a soldier who wants out of it. Grimmer than Red Queen and considerably better written.
- Blood that decides your class
- Arena trials and court politics
- Rebellion brewing
- Much more violent
Great matchShadow and Bone
Leigh Bardugo
An ordinary girl found to possess a rare power and installed at court by a man with plans for her. If the Maven twist landed, the Darkling will land harder.
- Betrayal as the engine
- Princes on both sides
- A thief passing as nobility
- Slighter first book
Great matchLegend
Marie Lu
A prodigy of the state and a wanted criminal, both fifteen, circling the same murder. Lu's plotting is tighter than almost anything else in this bracket.
- Blood that decides your class
- Rebellion brewing
- Betrayal as the engine
- Science fiction, no magic
Worth a look — with a warningRed Rising
Pierce Brown
A worker from the lowest colour infiltrating the ruling caste by having his body remade. It is Red Queen's premise for adults, and it is savage.
- Blood that decides your class
- A thief passing as nobility
- Arena trials and court politics
- Extremely violent throughout
Great matchThe Selection
Kiera Cass
A caste-numbered girl swept into a palace competition for a prince. All the courtly glitter, none of the killing — the comfort-read version of this shelf.
- Princes on both sides
- A thief passing as nobility
- Blood that decides your class
- Very low stakes
Great matchThe Young Elites
Marie Lu
Survivors of a plague develop powers and a girl discovers hers runs on spite. Lu lets her heroine be genuinely unpleasant, which Red Queen only flirts with.
- Betrayal as the engine
- Blood that decides your class
- Bleaker, less romantic
Worth a look — with a warningThe Maze Runner
James Dashner
Included because these lists travel together, though the overlap is thin: teenagers in a lethal test run by adults, with none of the court or romance.
- Arena trials and court politics
- Rebellion brewing
- No romance, no court
Great matchCaraval
Stephanie Garber
A game where nobody tells you the rules and the charming man beside you is lying. If Maven was your favourite part, Julian is cut from the same cloth.
- Betrayal as the engine
- Princes on both sides
- No class politics
Great matchThe Queen of the Tearling
Erika Johansen
A girl raised in hiding takes a throne she was never trained for, surrounded by advisers with their own agendas. Older and more political than most of this list.
- Arena trials and court politics
- A thief passing as nobility
- Rebellion brewing
- Adult tone and violence
Great matchDivergent
Veronica Roth
Sorted by aptitude, hiding a result that makes her dangerous, training beside people who might turn on her. The dystopian sibling to Red Queen's fantasy.
- Blood that decides your class
- Arena trials and court politics
- A thief passing as nobility
- No magic system
What should you read after Red Queen?
Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard works on several levels at once, and which book you should read next depends on which of those levels got you. For most readers the closest match is Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas — an assassin dragged into a royal competition, two princes, and a court where everyone is playing something. The nearest thing to Red Queen's exact recipe.
If what stayed with you was blood that decides your class, read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins instead: the class divide made brutal and public, with a girl from the bottom paraded as something she isn't. Everything Red Queen borrows, done first and done better. Graceling by Kristin Cashore is the other strong option — a girl whose gift makes her a weapon for a king she is starting to hate. Cashore writes a far more grounded heroine, and the romance never swallows the book.
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