Reviews

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

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ellakostka's review against another edition

2.0

2/5⭐️

this book is practically unreadable. it has the plot of a tiktok video, a marysue main character, terrible worldbuilding, a gazillion time jumps that make absolutely no sense, and is just overall an insufferable book. i really liked the beginning though, which is what makes me so mad. this book had potential!!!!! ahhhh!!!!

the_dragon_reread's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

kiwi14's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot

5.0

yohanieciu's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

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

4.0

a_chickletz's review against another edition

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2.0

This was one hell of a strange book.

It felt like it was three stories and they all seemed to get lost, or the original purpose of the story was lost at times.

Spoiler

I can tell you right now, I don't like the main character. I feel like he's just too one dimensional. He never encounters any setbacks, never any issues that keep him from failing. He was too perfect. My problem was is that we barely spent any time with him in the place where he grew up. And all of a sudden we're supposed to trust him, care for him, follow him through his journey. To be honest I really didn't care about him. I don't like stories that are first person and the author skimps when it comes to giving them character and just makes them do things and you're supposed to 'accept it'.

I also had a problem with the story. I felt that I had read it before in various other stories: Hunger Games, Divergent, and Lord of the Flies were three to name off the top of my head. I'm getting tired of stories where people battle one another out.

And lastly, I'm curious if there are any people of color in this story. There seemed to be much stress on the looks of everyone: gold hair, Adonis bodies, gold eyes. Were any of these people born of a different race other than white?

What did I like that gave it a two star rating?

I guess it was the way that it was one person bringing everyone together in various houses to fight against the main house. That was pretty cool. It was like a real war at times, taken from bits of history and Greek myths (hiding in dead horses was an interesting nod to Trojan horses).

I did like the characters that flanked the main character. Servo was perhaps the best, because he was the smallest but the most craftiest of them all.

I honestly thought Mustang was going to be the villain for book two but her 'moment' at the end of the book was cool. And that ending for Darrow was a total shocker. But I guess, in order to infiltrate, you need to get as close to the enemy as you can. I only hope that his 'friends' understand what he is doing and if he has come to that point to trust them and let them in on who he is and what he plans on doing. I feel they would make great allies and they wouldn't be so bad of people to keep around.

So, I liked it but I don't think the series is for me.