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logfan's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Child death, Colonisation, Cursing, and Death
heyjaycee's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Red Rising was a YA phenomenon when it came out in 2014. (Seven whole years ago! A different era!) Reading it now, its evocation of working class tradition and exploitation feels more timely than ever.
Darrow is a Red, a miner from a caste of miners, living and working under the surface of Mars to mine helium-3 so humanity can terraform the planet's surface above. At least, that's what Darrow and all the other subterranean Reds on Mars believe. When Darrow's wife is executed by the ruling Colours for insurrection, Darrow is forcibly recruited by the hidden Red rebellion and made into a sleeper agent in Gold society, with the eventual aim of bringing it down to liberate the enslaved Reds. And that's just the beginning!
This is a very masculine book. Maybe it's that I don't read a lot of books by cis men? I don't know. But it's not necessarily a bad thing. Brown's solar system is a bloody and grimdark place, and Darrow finds himself in possibly the bloodiest, grimmest, and darkest place in it.
Regardless, it's disturbingly good fun. Much like the Hunger Games, it's unsettlingly gripping to read about teenagers murdering and maiming each other to satisfy a cruel society's deeply unjust rituals. And the really satisfying thing about Red Rising and Darrow is that Darrow is just brutally good at it. Despite his setbacks, Darrow in full possession of all the facts about his situation is a Darrow who cannot be beaten. I guess it's a bit like supporting a relentlessly good football team.
Though lacking in substance, Red Rising is good, bloody, gripping, righteous fun.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Murder, Body horror, Slavery, and Bullying
Moderate: Sexual violence, Sexism, Torture, Animal death, and Rape
Minor: Cannibalism
This whole book is a content warning. It's very violent, often quite graphic. The rape is only discussed and alluded to, not shown, which is something.justcallme_d's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Blood, and Body horror
Moderate: Animal death
Minor: Rape
shaybro1728's review against another edition
dark
fast-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
4 out of 5 stars.
I have been thinking about how I want to structure this review. I should start by saying I loved a lot of this book. I think the action scenes were dynamic. I thought the main character of Darrow was amazing. His character arc just in this first book was beautiful. But I hated the discussions of rape and the characterization of the women in this book.
In one of the first major battles of this book, our main character heard one of Titus's side characters sexually assault a woman. For me, I do not like it when authors use sexual assault as a narrative tool. Those discussions need to be done thoughtfully, carefully, and provide some direct and thoughtful justice to the character. In this first instance, I thought that the author brought up a good point. Darrow's main character asks the group what he should do and if they would care about the assault of the victim was not gold (the highest-ranking race in this world). And I think that does point to some important problems when we talk about sexual assault. We only care about it when it is against someone we deem worthy of grieving. However, there is another scene in which a sexual assault happened. The assaulter receives 20 lashes, and Darrow makes his troop give him 25 lashes saying that any wrongdoing he will share in the punishment. And the assaulted gets to be a ranking member, and the victim fades more or else into the background for me. There was no justice. Yes, the author talked about how the assault was about power. But he didn't take away power from the assaulted. Everyone moved on, and all was forgiven. This issue is still a large barrier for me in reading the next book in the series.
But second, the female characters in this book felt like props. The male characters definitely had more in-depth personalities. For example, all we know of EO is that she is pretty, she picked who she wanted to love, and she sang a death song. But we don't know anything else about her. Darrow constantly talks about how pretty Eo was. But nothing about her personality. Nothing about her character. Mustang, the new love interest, we know, is smart, pretty, and is wealthy. But she lacked any depth for me. It was just so frustrating to see Darrow have such a deeply thought-through personality and story arch, and all the women were merely props to motivate his next moves.
I have been thinking about how I want to structure this review. I should start by saying I loved a lot of this book. I think the action scenes were dynamic. I thought the main character of Darrow was amazing. His character arc just in this first book was beautiful. But I hated the discussions of rape and the characterization of the women in this book.
In one of the first major battles of this book, our main character heard one of Titus's side characters sexually assault a woman. For me, I do not like it when authors use sexual assault as a narrative tool. Those discussions need to be done thoughtfully, carefully, and provide some direct and thoughtful justice to the character. In this first instance, I thought that the author brought up a good point. Darrow's main character asks the group what he should do and if they would care about the assault of the victim was not gold (the highest-ranking race in this world). And I think that does point to some important problems when we talk about sexual assault. We only care about it when it is against someone we deem worthy of grieving. However, there is another scene in which a sexual assault happened. The assaulter receives 20 lashes, and Darrow makes his troop give him 25 lashes saying that any wrongdoing he will share in the punishment. And the assaulted gets to be a ranking member, and the victim fades more or else into the background for me. There was no justice. Yes, the author talked about how the assault was about power. But he didn't take away power from the assaulted. Everyone moved on, and all was forgiven. This issue is still a large barrier for me in reading the next book in the series.
But second, the female characters in this book felt like props. The male characters definitely had more in-depth personalities. For example, all we know of EO is that she is pretty, she picked who she wanted to love, and she sang a death song. But we don't know anything else about her. Darrow constantly talks about how pretty Eo was. But nothing about her personality. Nothing about her character. Mustang, the new love interest, we know, is smart, pretty, and is wealthy. But she lacked any depth for me. It was just so frustrating to see Darrow have such a deeply thought-through personality and story arch, and all the women were merely props to motivate his next moves.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Kidnapping, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Grief, Gore, Genocide, Excrement, Emotional abuse, Death, Cursing, Child death, Cannibalism, Body horror, Blood, Animal death, and Animal cruelty
sheilajenn's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This was a good book, I'm pretty sure, but not really a good book for me. It was well written, the worldbuilding is good, the pace keeps up a good clip, but it's really dark and there's some pretty gruesome stuff in there.
The premise is that the highest caste, the Golds, educates their children through a bloody war game. Our hero, who is a member of the lowest caste (Red) but masquerading as a Gold, has to do well in this game to destroy the caste system.
So, basically, it's The Hunger Games meets the Iliad. The problem is that watching teenagers kill each other to survive isn't fun for me at all. I don't want to downrate the book for that, but I won't be reading the next one.
Allll the trigger warnings.
The premise is that the highest caste, the Golds, educates their children through a bloody war game. Our hero, who is a member of the lowest caste (Red) but masquerading as a Gold, has to do well in this game to destroy the caste system.
So, basically, it's The Hunger Games meets the Iliad. The problem is that watching teenagers kill each other to survive isn't fun for me at all. I don't want to downrate the book for that, but I won't be reading the next one.
Allll the trigger warnings.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Torture, Slavery, Medical content, Gore, Death, Body horror, and Blood
Moderate: Rape and Cannibalism
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