Reviews with content warning for Cannibalism - Red Rising

Reviews tagging 'Cannibalism'

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

141 reviews

_rils97's review against another edition

dark funny medium-paced

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

4.75

I read this book for the first time in 2019 and I immediately loved it. I still love the book second time reading it. The characters are funny and dark, cold, cruel. Some of them you hate but you love to hate them and others are crazy and wild and loyal and become the best parts of the book. The plot is creative but. it does have hunger game vibes throughout the book.

Trigger Warnings: Murder, Sexual Assault, Body Mutilation, Cannabalism.

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neoralisa22's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark 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

4.25

Darrow is the reason you shouldn't give a 16 years old too much power.

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knikki's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.25

"I live for you,’ I say sadly.
She kisses my cheek. ‘Then you must live for more.”

Red Rising is a sci fi dystopia with a social hierarchy denoted by colours. Red being low, Gold being the highs. It is often compared to Hunger Games, but I think that's just a basic "the world is a dystopia, it has kids killing each other" generalisation. Hunger Games is one of my favourite series, my nostalgic safety blanket, and I'm a dystopia junkie, so I had high hopes for this series.

And when I tell you I wanted to love this book. With all my heart I thought this book would be the most up my alley of my TBR pile. This might have been a mood reader problem, an expectations problem, or maybe it just wasn't the right fit for me. It is a good book, don't get me wrong. But it wasn't earth shattering for me like I'd hoped.

I enjoyed the start, the build up of the world, the class system and the social dynamics was excellent. The relationships in the sheltered Mars of the Reds were fully fleshed out, and made me care about these characters. Then we're yanked out of there and left with only our main character and a whole new cast of faces. And unfortunately, as the story progressed, I felt no connection to these characters. They fell flat. Was it the audiobook? Did I zone out? I couldn't confirm or deny.

The war games were interesting, but I confusingly felt like the whole middle section of the book somehow moved at a snails pace, and yet the fastest any book has ever moved. I was both bored and couldn't keep up. How?

The end started to get really good, so I'm interested to see where the rest of the series is headed. I just wish I felt more strongly about this first entry. I'll take a break before continuing, in case it was in fact, a mood reader thing.

“The measure of a man is what he does when he has power.”

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kaylanicholsmith's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.0

Hmm... where to begin with this....

I feel like I was really excited to get to this finally because of all the hype that I've heard over all the years and it was... fine? This book is kinda dense. You get thrown right into the world of Darrow, the main character, and you are learning as you go. There is nothing about the world, the language, the setting that is really explained to you. Darrow, as a character, kinda expects people to just know what he is talking about. Sometimes this narrative style works for me and other times it doesn't. Ultimately, the writing style as a whole just wasn't my favorite. I kept trying to remind myself that we are primarily reading from the perspective of teenage boys (yuck) but it just felt over the top with the juvenile quality sometimes. Also, my biggest pet peeve in books, any genre, is when the author has to insert fart jokes or fart commentary (usually as an insult to another character). I just can't stand it. The amount of times the author used "turd" could also warrant some kind of an award.

Despite the issues with the writing my biggest question with this story was the handling of sexual assault. On one hand, I feel like the author did do something a little different than a lot of other male fantasy/scifi writers - the female characters were not only there to be sexually assaulted and serve no other purpose. However, on the other hand, the amount of sexual assault still felt gratuitous and the female characters underdeveloped. While there is nothing graphic on the page, there is ample talk about the sexual assaults taking place, and not all of it is condemning the actions taking place. Granted, sexual violence is quite commonplace in war situations and the bystander effect is a terrible thing that happens everyday, but the author didn't really seem to tackle the issue quite as head on as he might have thought he was. Perhaps that was because there is SO MUCH going on in this first book - I think that we cover about 2 years in the course of this first book - and it flies. There is no real delving into any of the social issues that are being raised in the book. Everything felt super surface level.

I haven't totally written off the rest of the series but I'm in no major rush to continue on. I wonder if, as the story continues to build, that the commentary will become stronger and the writing more palatable but who knows. Maybe I never will... we'll see.

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tiana_king's review against another edition

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adventurous dark reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Somehow a mix between Outlander, The Hunger Games, and 1984. But put it in space ✨ Sometimes the main character irritated me with his impulsivity and naïveté but then I’d remember he’s 17 so I’m sure that was on purpose.

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withoutblade's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

4.75

You can tell it's written by a white man. But hey, the plot is really interesting in my opinion.

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kiwij96's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Some clunky sentences and sentence structure at times. There are too many colours too, which I hope will be touched on in later books because if not then why are they mentioned. However, very good pacing and general stroytelling. Definitely sets the scene for the rest of the series. The ending may have been a little rushed but it still worked in the greater scheme of things. And the lack of descriptions for fictional tools. Like,,,I am none the wiser on what any of these things look like. What do they mean by razor? Also, why is it written like "gravBoots" in the book, why not capitalise the G too since the B is so important. But thats a personal annoyance more than a critique.

Red Rising was genuinely one of the best books I've read in a long time, so much so I have the rest of the series ready for when I have recovered from the emotional whiplash of this one. Dark, dystopian, excellent worldbuilding and a deep political system that I am excited to discover more of. Would highly recommend.

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