Red Rising

Wasn't sure about this one at first, but it grabbed me twice over before it began in earnest. A friend's review called it “predictable,” and I can't disagree, but I thought the setup was worth it. Ended up really enjoying it, and am looking forward to the rest of the series.

Oh Darrow, you are one lovely character.

An innovative world the author has spun his hero's journey within. The middle is a little bit hard to get through, and the main character loses rather a lot of his core personality halfway through and turns into someone unrecognizable up until that point, but the ending has the sought-after hook to lead you into the second book.

Ik vond Rood zeker overtuigend als een debuut en als een dystopische roman. Ook al is het doorspekt met heel herkenbare elementen reeds gebruikt en hergebruikt en eerdere dystopische verhalen, blijft Rood origineel en krachtig in zijn boodschap.
Er waren hier en daar wel passages die ik langdradig vond, vooral deze nodig om de complexe wereld en sommige veldslagen aan ons te omschrijven, toch heb ik genoten van dit complex en meerlagig boek en kijk ik absoluut uit naar waar het vervolg ons gaat brengen!

One of the best books I've read in a long time. So good.

How to finish a book you're not particularly fond of? Sit in traffic. That way, you'd have no choice but to flip the pages and read the entire book.

What if you have it in your kindle and you have lots of other books on it? Stick to it like a good friend and finish the damn book.

For the record, I really wanted to like this book. If for one thing, it's cool– Sigils and all, but what other things is it good for? Next to nothing, the cover looks good, this would really fit nice on my shelf.

Did I hate it? Not really.

Will I read it again? Maybe. (Hoping there's a change of approach.)

In retrospect, I dreaded this book; dragged myself into finishing this despite my liking of Sevro.

Wowsers. I can see why people have been raving about this book. Dark, gritty, fast paced and action-packed. I loved the way it was written. I really enjoyed not knowing where it was going next, though it didn't feel like twists and turns for the sake of it.

Brilliant book!

One of the best books I've ever read. Absolutely loved it! Makes me want to drop all my other reviews down a star.

Took my a while to read but really enjoyed this :)

I listened to the Audio book for Red Rising and between an great story and a great reader I was wowed. This book made my long commute a little less long.

It started not so good. I didn't really like how the author writes. T I loved part of the book, and after that there were times I liked it and times I didn't.
But in the end I want to read the second one so I can say it is good. But not as I expected.

This book is often compared to the Hunger Games, and it's hard not to see the comparisons at first. Main character from a disenfranchised class? Check. Oppressive government? Check. Plus, there's even a deadly competition between teenagers that makes up most of the book. However, that is where the similarities end.

It takes at least 50 pages or so for Red Rising to really hit its stride. The beginning feels like the start of just about every dystopian young adult series ever written. After those first pages, it really differentiates itself.

Both romantic and platonic relationships are deeply fleshed out, with slow development that takes place over the entire book. No angsty love triangles here. The primary characters feel like real people and have nuanced motivations. In addition, the worldbuilding is incredibly interesting and the prose, while straightforward, is full of fantastic lines that leave me thinking for days afterward.

I listened to the audiobook, and Tim Gerard Reynolds knocks it out of the park. I like Tim in all of his narrations, but this might be my favorite.

I have been wanting to read this book since it came out and was thrilled to win a copy through Goodreads. The worldbuilding and characters are amazing alone. With the plot it is up there with Dune and Ender's Game for a person rising up and changing their world - even if as a martyr. It is tough to be believable and even tougher to survive re-reading. This is an amazing book and I can't wait to read the next done.

Executive Summary: What started out as boring and predictable suddenly became totally engrossing. If not for such a terrible start, I might have given this book 5 stars.Audiobook: The big selling point of giving this book a try was the fact that [a:Tim Gerard Reynolds 4132657 Tim Gerard Reynolds https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1370714999p2/4132657.jpg] was the narrator. I loved him with the Riyria books. In fact he spoiled me so I can't read those books and must wait for the audio versions. He does a fantastic job here as well. You get great inflections and accents adding a lot to the story. It really helped me get through the first third of this book when I was otherwise bored. Audio is the only way to go for this book/series in my opinion.Full ReviewThis book/series has been getting a ton of buzz. I really didn't care. I don't much care for YA books it seems, and the whole dystopian uprising story has been done to death. The main reason I picked it up was that it was on sale and I really like the narrator.For the first 33% or so, I felt like my original reluctance was totally justified. I was bored. It felt like paint by numbers. Nothing surprising or interesting happened. At its core there really isn't anything new here. It combines elements of several well known/successful fantasy series, but puts them in a science fiction setting.Yet despite that, once the real story got started, and all the setup was finally done, I got sucked in. I like the characters, I like the world building, and despite it's rather bleak/dystopian overtones, I found it a lot of fun somehow. It's a bit of a school trope (which I'm totally a sucker for), though it's more [b:Battle Royale 57891 Battle Royale Koushun Takami https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1331235272s/57891.jpg 2786327] than Harry Potter. I'm sure many people would say [b:The Hunger Games 2767052 The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1) Suzanne Collins https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1447303603s/2767052.jpg 2792775] instead, since that's the more recent/better know story. While I enjoyed that story, I just couldn't take the writing and preferred the movies to the books. The writing here could have used some more polish, especially in the first part, but I found it infinitely more readable.I might file this book under “guilty pleasure” reading, except I don't feel guilty. I like reading a book that makes me want to cheer out loud. I like having a character to root for against insurmountable odds. I love to hate when the author makes me angry or sad at a character's mistakes or misfortune. This book had all of that.It also had an original enough story that caused me to mostly forget about its slow start and sucked me in. I couldn't wait to find out what happened next. For the start of a trilogy, it does end in a decent place. There are plenty of questions left, but I feel like you could pause to read something else. Thankfully however, I don't have to and I immediately jumped into [b:Golden Son 18966819 Golden Son (Red Rising, #2) Pierce Brown https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1394684475s/18966819.jpg 26984955].I'm looking forward to seeing where things go with this series, and if he can keep up the story from the latter two thirds of this book, I suspect I'll enjoy the rest of the ride, even if it ends in seemingly inevitable tragedy.

I loved this! It's a great tale of the downtrodden sticking it to the man! Pretty ‘science fictiony' for me but great read

Dystopian novels seem to be a dime a dozen lately, some good, some horrible, so it is great to see a book set itself apart and really capture my imagination


The beginning was a little predictable, I mean to create a man with an epic quest there must be a great injustice done to him. Darrow is that boy/man, while most boys of seventeen but he has seen and been through too much to be a boy any longer. Married to his childhood sweetheart Eo at sixteen he works for his clan mining underground on Mars so the planet can be made for future generations. He works hard to provide for them but it seems that they are destined to be low forever. Eo has dreams to make their lot in life better for Darrow to stand up and rebel but he wants nothing except her.

Near as I can tell, this is Pierce Brown's first novel. Sometimes first novels are rife with issues. Pacing issues. character development problems. Not so here. I'm quite impressed. I really enjoyed this book.

This is supposed to be a book for young adults. And it is, I suppose. But don't be fooled by the genre, this book has it all~~the dystopian society, science fiction, romance, mystery and it THRILLS. 5 Rising Stars from Me

I honestly seriously debated if I should keep reading this a few times throughout the first part. I so almost quit. I was frustrated. Some things just didn't make sense. The author seemed to contradict his own writing, didn't explain things as well as I would have liked, or seemed to write things just because. But I pushed through. I told myself that maybe the world building just took time to fully grasp. Maybe it would get better. Thank fuck, it did!
Once I hit the second section I pretty much didn't put this down until I was done. I ate while reading. I fed my dogs with one hand because I was holding my kindle. This isn't a perfect book, but it'll keep you reading as it's consistently well paced.

Obvious influences and references I picked up on:
- Greek and Roman mythology to the max
- Harry Potter (People in houses based on personality and intelligence? Do you need the sorting hat?)
- Lord of the Flies (But also with girls.)
- Ender's Game (There's an actual reference to Wiggin by name.)
- Divergent (Factions, but even more caste system like.)
- Battle Royale and Hunger Games (Goal isn't to kill to win, but there aren't rules against killing to win.)

SHIT. SON.
Holy crap. Okay, I've never read such a book that was so fast-paced and cohesive and well-written. I love the character development and the harsh realities of war that shouldn't happen but DO. The author is just plain AMAZING. I cannot wait to read the sequel as soon as I get my hands on it. By the way, I love Mustang and Darrow. Both are my two favorite characters! Sevro is pretty cool too :)

I really enjoyed this book. If you like The Hunger Games, Game of Thrones, and Seveneves (or any elements of space), you will enjoy this book.

This book surprised me. Not sure what I was expecting but this surpassed it. One of my favorite books.

This was a great book. It started a bit YA but it kept upping the anti as it went and by the end I couldn't wait to get the second of the trilogy. As the quote on the cover says: “Ender, Katniss and now Darrow”.

**review to follow

Or more like 3.5 stars, maybe even 3.75. When I first clicked “I'm finished”, I had no idea how many stars I was going to give this book. As I stared at those empty shapes I kept thinking that in general I liked it. I didn't have anything bad to say about the story or the writing. It was an interesting concept and vivid beginning. There were some issues in the middle. Places where I was like c'mon get on with it (and for the love of paperbacks, stop the waterworks over Eo). Darrow, our protagonist isn't always the most interesting, or heck even complex character. And the end, while a logical conclusion for the first part of a trilogy, it felt a bit like author knew he had to find a decent spot to make the break and so he closed his eyes and picked a page number out of a hat. There were world building problems, well if you want to consider a lack of world building a problem. We're thrown into this Martian world where humans have not only conquered but also figured out how to live on all the other planets in the solar system. Don't know a thing about how or why or even when. There are vague references to something happening on Earth, but they seem to contradict themselves - maybe an environmental disaster or was it a big war with coups and overthrown governments? A combination of the two with nukes involved? I honestly have no clue. Why do they use a color caste system? (seriously YA authors enough already with the color codes). Why do all these morons have the names of ancient greek and roman politicians and intellectuals and yet not think highly of the originals? Lots of questions, but no answers and that was a bit frustrating. (I'm hoping some of this is cleared up in the other books.) On the other hand, the action scenes were riveting. Watching Darrow figure out things out and use his advantages to spur others was fun. And most definitely can't forget Sevro. He was crazy scary fantastic fun.

I can definitely see the Hunger Games comparisons, but if that's all you're going to compare it with, you should really pick up a few other YA novels to add to your bedside to-be-read pile. The Divergent series. Harry Potter (where else would grav boots and ghost cloaks come from?). Lord of the Flies. Even a tiny bit of The Chocolate War. As I commented at one point this book is like a big ole melting pot of YA novels. Honestly, that's not a bad thing.

So it looks like I'll have to add Golden Son to my TBR list. And Morning Star (because I can't very well read only 2 out of 3 in the series).

At first I have to admit that I found this book quite boring. The story just seemed to be very idle and slow while the world was built. But when it took off, it REALLY took off. It was like slow... slow... BOOM. It felt like a mix of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, but set on Mars. It was really cool.

So if you want violence? This book has it. Death? Yep, right here. Friendship? That too. A brand new world? Look no further.

Wow! I don't even know where I should start.

I guess I should begin with saying that I loved this book. I loved it so much I read it in less than a day and I just bought “Golden Son” and pre-ordered “Morning Star.” I shall now attempt to demonstrate why.

We're all bored with dystopian science fiction, aren't we? Well, not anymore.

I don't want to give away too many spoilers, but I really want you to read this book. It does a better job of setting up a revolution than “Divergent” or “The Hunger Games.”

Pierce Brown does an incredible job of weaving a story that sucked me in and made my heart race. When Darrow experiences the worst tragedy of his life, the tragedy that makes him a revolutionary, I felt it. I felt the mounting dread as he realized what was about to happen. My heart pounded when I myself realized what was coming. And when it happened, I cried.

Darrow isn't perfect, but he loves his family, and he wants revenge. He makes mistakes, he gets things wrong. He rude, impulsive, afraid, and so incredibly angry. His rage burns in your own chest as he realizes that for 500 years, his people have been lied to and enslaved.

I enjoyed this book because I was rooting for someone who was finally realistic. Katniss Everdeen was cold and clinical. Tris was whiny.

Darrow does everything because he wants revenge, and hopefully the rebirth of a broken system. His love for his wife and the life they should have had drives him. But what's amazing is watching him evolve. Like I said, he makes mistakes, but don't we all?

He feels shame and remorse when people die and constantly evaluates if his mission is worth the cost. There are difficult sacrifices made along the way, and the people who die for him, he does not forget.

I really hope you pick this up. People say this book started out slow, but I didn't feel that way. Perhaps because I read it over the course of a single day, it didn't feel like it was dragging. I didn't feel like there were too many houses, colors, or characters. Everything had a purpose. Everyone had a job to do. And I can't wait for more!

P.S. I loved that it was on Mars! Space stuff rocks!