Children's ✦ Penny’s Take 🎧 Audiobook
Red Queen
Victoria Aveyard · 2015
🎙 Narrated by Amanda Dolan (HarperCollins/HarperAudio, unabridged, released February 2015)
80/100
👍 Worth It
A fast, politically charged dystopian that won real recognition (a Goodreads Choice Award) even if some critics find the twists a bit familiar next to The Hunger Games. Amanda Dolan's narration is singled out for the way she builds tension toward that big betrayal twist, so this is one worth the listen. The class-oppression violence is handled with some restraint, appropriate for teens.
✦ Penny’s Take — this is The Review Group’s own editorial assessment. Penny’s analytical review line researched this book from real sources and scored it across the lenses shown below. It’s an honest first-party read — not a page-by-page personal one. The gold ✓ Penny Tested mark is reserved for books Penny reads cover to cover herself.
⚠ Parent note — our reviewers flagged: fantasy/political violence including executions and punishment of the oppressed class. We still scored it 80; these are context for your family, not an automatic skip.
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🎙 Narration: good AudioFile Magazine praised Amanda Dolan for modulated tones conveying Mare's disdain and varied secondary-character inflections building to the twist.
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Show the math
Verdict receipt0–100
Faith & family safety70
Substance / usefulness78
Craft & writing80
Originality62
Evidence & accuracy80
Hype vs delivers75
Age-fit72
Human-eye read75
Penny’s verdict80
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