Reviews with content warning for Fatphobia - Red Rising

It felt like an American author trying really hard to write in various British accents and Irish accents. I found it distracting and made the plot more convoluted than necessary.

The audiobook narration was okay. I think I would’ve enjoyed this more if it had been a physical/e-book vs. the audiobook. I think the narration highlighted the problems of the writing.

*Accents haven’t previously been an issue for me so it was surprising how distracting it was with this book.

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Now that was fun!

Enjoyment - 5
I put this off for so long -- I'm talking years -- because I was intimidated by it being in the Sci Fi genre. That is a genre I'm not entirely interested in and the few books I have read in that area were a little heavy with the lingo. However, this felt like the perfect mix between having Sci Fi elements that felt Fantasy esq. I had a fun time with the progression of this story and the book is really high on Darrow like he's the best, but that was part of the fun for me. He does some rad stuff along with Sevro and Virginia. I would ride or die for Sevro and Virginia. This book feels like the high of reaching the mountain top only for you to get to the second book to then realize this is only the first, tinier peak in a larger mountain range. This was a fun ride.

Start - 4
My least favorite part of the book. The beginning is fine though the writing was a little grating at times, this went away as the book went on. I didn't like how Darrow's wife was fridged. For being the character that Darrow's entire arc hinges upon, she wasn't very fleshed out and was more superficial. Maybe in the third book Darrow will see how little he actually new about her, because he didn't seem to know much. Or at least, not a lot of info was given to us about who she actually was. This section only gets a 4 instead of a 3 for the the Charlie Chaplin "machine minds and machine hearts" reference. It fits the theme.

Characters - 5
Virginia and Sevro *chef's kiss* and Darrow was cool to. I didn't mind that he was a Gary Stu, it meant we got scenes that were very satisfying to watch go down. Overall, the characters feel very theatrical in how they act, like the whole Gold society is a play.

Atmosphere - 4
I can't say the physical world overall is one I completely can visual without adding my own imagination to it because we didn't see much of it. The competition part I felt was described well, but it definitely invokes more of a typical Fantasy setting rather than a Sci Fi one. The political and societal atmosphere is laid out in a clear way and impacted all the characters realistically.

Plot - 5
Hmm, was this really a plot? I'm not sure. All I know is it was fun to be swept away by the actions of these characters and their little war games. Strange for that to be fun because the reality of those theories and actions is dark, but the characters had goals and acted towards reaching them and that gave the book movement.

Ending - 5
Satisfying and what I wanted to see go down. Rooted for Darrow the whole time and

dammit I fell for the trap of being suspicious of Virginia.

Style - 4
The writing was serviceable and I didn't have any issues with the made up slang parts. The beginning writing with the Reds felt a bit off and stilted, so not my favorite. This seems like a good YA/Adult crossover book. It uses some pretty common YA tropes, but adds in some Adult ones as well.

Overall - 4.5

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