Reviews with content warning for Hate crime - Red Rising

Reviews tagging 'Hate crime'

bookfulthoughts's review

adventurous challenging dark hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Magnetic and captivating ✨

“I am the spark that will set the worlds afire. I am the hammer that cracks the chains.”

I really liked this one! The story was extremely well written and interesting. The world building was excellent and extremely detailed. I was able to visualize exactly what was happening and what everyone looked like! I like that the plot was never lost in the storytelling and this book sets up for the rest of the books in the series perfectly. I do believe that I can see this book becoming a classic in the near future. I loved the concept of the color classism and how that was presented. In my opinion, that was a unique aspect of the story. I also loved that Darrow wasn’t perfect! I he has many flaws but that’s what makes this book good. It gives his character room to grow and develop in complexity.

My reasoning for not giving it 5 stars. Personally, in certain parts of the book it was very reminiscent of the Hunger Games. Having inspiration is fine and I have no problem with that. I’m not sure if it's just me but some scenes felt too familiar. Another thing I took points off for was the fact that I felt like I should have been more emotionally attached to certain characters but I didn’t feel much when things happened. I felt like it was a little cold at times with other characters. Besides these issues, I really liked this book and I do plan on reading the rest of the series in the near future.

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archaicrobin's review against another edition

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adventurous fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

This “novel” is absolute garbage. How this book was published let alone praised is mind boggling.

Why does this book suck?

-characters are weak, unoriginal, and poorly crafted. Every female in this story is raped, tortured, and valueless. The only merit a female has in this novel is what she offers a man, or what a man does to her, or how she can be used against a man. There is rape or mentions of rape in almost every chapter and it’s thrown in like it’s nothing. Pierce Brown should take some classes on sexism and how writing scenes like this when they have no context of what they are talking about is harmful. Along with the lack of any actual female characters, the main character is a joke. His alliances change every page or so, he is a misogynist, he is a Mary-Sue amazing at everything and he is overall dull.

-The Plot. The plot is a mash up of every single YA apocalyptic story you’ve ever read but the cheap knock off version. You have Hunger games, Divergent, and even Harry Potter all thrown in to create this monstrosity. Nothing is original, everything is taken from something else, and the plot of Darrow rising to I guess avenge his people is lost in the silly “war school” which is basically Harry potter but without the magic, atmosphere, gripping characters, exciting trials, or anything of merit really. The plot devolves into raping young girls while the men suck their own dicks to claim the title of “proctor” or “primus”. The misogyny is absolutely rampant.

- this “novel” is the biggest toxic masculinity, misogynistic, idiotic, compilation of text I have ever seen. This is by far the WORST book I have read this year and I think it is actually detrimental to society.

Do not read this book where women are raped and considered things, where the main character justifies the rape by saying it’s simply “war crimes” where men are emasculated every page and beaten down to make the main character look valuable. There is nothing good about this book and I’m personally offended that this was published let alone allowed to continue in a series. Do not let your teen read this, do not let anyone you care about read this. This is MY OPINION and I am not ashamed to share it. Whoever read this and decided to market it let alone published at all should be ashamed.

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lillelow's review against another edition

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DNF 40%.

The book begins the worst possible way with drunk father figures and community leaders laughing about raping the protagonist’s wife - and no one raises an eyebrow. Misogyny, machoism, masochism, prostitution as a means of female survival and male pleasure, a world in which all women are beautiful, marry when they’re 14 and work with silk while all the manly men work in the mines… This is a sci-fi novel, a world of make believe. You can write about ANYTHING. Create ANY future. Yet this is what we get. I’m SO F* TIRED of reading about this bullshit.

I wanted to put the book down then and there, but decided to give it a go because of all the good reviews.

I shouldn’t have bothered. It doesn’t get better.

The premiss is interesting, but the execution and the character portrayal is horrible.

I didn’t like the protagonist at all. Clever, brave, strong, humble, hardworking, loving… All the right things! At least, that’s what I’m told. Honestly, all I see is a self absorbed insular teenager with no weakness who excels at everything he does for no reason other than he’s the chosen one. He doesn’t have to be likeable, but believable is quite important, and this book does none of it.

The supposedly romantic interactions between the protagonist and his wife are probably supposed to be charming and sweet but only feel stiff, cliche and childish and evoke no emotions at all. But hey, at least she is incredibly beautiful and we’re told everyone loves her… I guess that was enough for the author.

I didn’t like any of the other characters either. Even the ones who are described in good light are horrible, not to mention the way they express themselves. I’m not prude. Explicit language and swearing is fine. But most of the writing, dialogue, slurs and expletives in this book are just disturbing and annoying. You cannot make me believe people talk like this for real. Is it supposed to be cool?? I couldn’t stand it, I hated almost everyone and the flat writing did nothing to help.

At 40% through, I couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t care about the story or the characters and was mostly annoyed at it all. Ender’s Game’s the perfect chosen one meets the segregation and killing of The Hunger Games or Gladiator (only it’s terrible) in a violent color-coded elite school on Mars with some sprinkles… no, make that a heavy rain…. of machoism and sexism.

No thank you.
★★-

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stephanie_ap_sweeney's review

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adventurous dark emotional inspiring tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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linkwoodpub's review

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dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Incredible execution on a very cheesy premise. It took me a long time to dive in, but once I did it was an absolute rollercoaster (in a good way).

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aelytacchan's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I can't say I understand why Red Rising is a fan favorite. It wasn't bad, but its tempo is so gruelling that I almost DNFd it - saved only by the fact I already had all the audiobooks from a past sale.

I didn't love it, I didn't hate it, but I found a lot of it foul. I think that might be on purpose, but a lot of the violence seemed unnecessary and out of bounds even for the world's laws and customs.

Women were constantly used as symbols, to further plot points, or as convenient caretakers. Despite there being women peppered into the story, they were mostly inconsequential or, when they were of consequence, they just naturally decided they would rather follow Darrow.

I'll take some time to reflect on whether I want to invest more time into the following books, seeing as they're somewhat on the longer side, but as of now, I don't particularly feel like jumping into the next part of the story.

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