Reviews tagging 'Sexism'

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

55 reviews

sclark99's review against another edition

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

2.75

Oof, okay. It's not that it's bad. It's weirdly hyper-masculine. There are some decent female characters but there's also a gratuitous amount of (off-screen)

sexual assault

of 16 year old girls, which is only a narrative tool for our already extremely rageful protag to get even more angry and righteous. 

From the first Part of the book, I thought it was going to be a sci-fi Mistborn. It turned out more like a darker Hunger Games. Pretty much nothing revolution-wise happened in this book at all. The protag gets suped up and participates in the fucked-up games the upper class uses to advance their "best and brightest" -- very Ender's Game meets Hunger Games. Everyone he meets is either a good guy or a Nazi. He doesn't do anything when members of his team

rape

"slaves" they have taken. He eventually kills the dude who condoned/allowed it, and afterwards

finds out that he had been a Red the whole time, also

.  Is there anyone in this book we are allowed to like? I get that it's dystopian, but ffs at least make your protag likeable. He says he's fueled by rage but underneath that is love, but it's hard to believe. He spends the majority of the book completely dissociated from his people, and I get that he's getting prepared to be a revolutionary leader or whatever, but it's just... I don't know. It doesn't work for me. 

It's also really, really derivative. There is absolutely nothing in this book that feels fresh or innovative. It's rich people bad and have no loyalty, poor people love their family and don't know how the world is screwing them over. Darrow is clever but it's never really emphasized. He just sort of seems to do things that work all the time. Not to say he doesn't make mistakes, but his failures tend to be more other people betraying or failing him rather than him making the wrong choices. 

There is no "red rising" in this book. I don't really care to read about more entitled teenagers being destructive and arrogant. I want to be able to root for my protagonist, not just his cause. There are ways to write characters like Darrow -- Kelsier from Mistborn comes to mind. (He's older, but he's a rage and vengeance-driven lower class citizen willing to do whatever it takes to break the social order including infiltrating the ruling class... they have a lot in common.) Not portrayed as a perfect person.

This isn't a particularly well-thought out review but it's my 2 cents. I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I'm doing to do more research on the rest of the series to decide if I want to give the sequel a chance -- presumably it's not going to be in this weird feudal battle royale setting. If it has less  

rape

and more politics and actual revolution I would be interested. I like the setting, more than a lot of dystopian settings. I like the logic of it. Color-coded caste systems are a little passe but they work well enough in stories. I really wish there was more sci-fi in this sci-fi dystopia. That's another thing I imagine will be more present in later books, given that they presumably won't be in an isolated, nearly technology-free setting. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Death, Sexual violence, Sexism, Sexual assault, Slavery, War, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Rape

sonnybonobo's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

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

2.5

Plot dragged in areas that made it a struggle to finish. Most characters felt very flat, making it hard to remember who they were throughout the book. Sevro was the only character I truly enjoyed. 

I had a really hard time finding anything like-able about the main character. We’re constantly told about the MCs motivations, but they don’t feel genuine throughout the book. Just constantly saying my wife, my wife, makes his motivations feel very superficial. 

Pretty obvious misogyny bleeding through into the writing. Even outside of the sexual violence, women were often treated as objects of war and martyrs. The only substantial female character is of course the love interest and every interaction with her is overshadowed by MCs feelings toward her. Also constantly comparing her to his wife was weird as hell.

Also some casual homophobia that didn’t provide anything to the plot or characters. Just didn’t need to be there, making it really gross read through.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Murder, and War

Moderate: Rape, Slavery, Sexual assault, Misogyny, Homophobia, and Sexism

Minor: Cannibalism

marla_arguelles's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective sad 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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Cursing, Death, Kidnapping, Sexual violence, Slavery, Animal cruelty, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Sexual harassment, Violence, Child death, Grief, Physical abuse, Rape, Confinement, War, Self harm, Torture, Toxic friendship, Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Misogyny, Murder, Sexual assault, Sexism, and Sexual content

n0elle's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Death of parent, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Body horror, Death, Gaslighting, Animal cruelty, Blood, Rape, Animal death, Classism, Gore, Police brutality, Violence, War, Murder, Physical abuse, Child death, Colonisation, Confinement, Excrement, Sexual assault, Grief, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, Sexism, Racism, Slavery, and Torture

brennapatt's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexism, Sexual assault, Animal death, Blood, Cannibalism, Death, Death of parent, Misogyny, Physical abuse, War, Body horror, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Rape, Xenophobia, Torture, Alcohol, Violence, Kidnapping, and Sexual harassment

ahalpine's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Slavery, Sexism, Rape, Death, Cannibalism, Bullying, Blood, and War

kiramke's review against another edition

adventurous 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? It's complicated

0.5

Immediate no.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Sexism

Moderate: Sexual violence and War

jeggfriedrice's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Sexual assault, Rape, Sexism, and Homophobia

zephyrscape's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

I enjoyed the story for the most part, although it felt like the author kept trying to drill it into us that we couldn't have nice things. I'm not taking off stars for that in my review, since this *is* a dystopian story after all, but the pretty relentless pace at times of bad things happening at times ended up pretty quickly just making me shrug my shoulders and avoid getting particularly attached to any one character/relationship between characters, which feels like it wasn't the intent... I didn't even come close to crying at any point while reading, and it feels like I was supposed to.

What I *am* lowering my rating for, though, is how the book felt like it was meant to tell a deep story about the imperfections of a society while also (seemingly unconsciously?) assuming as right and natural some of the worse parts of our own society. For example, the female characters all felt pretty flat to me. I felt like I was watching cardboard cutouts that either existed to be put on a pedestal, or to be motherly, or to be shy and vulnerable, or to be tempting to Darrow. (Even a female character that is referred to as "the brightest" by Darrow himself mostly exists to bounce his own ideas off of; the actual ideas that turn the plot all come from him. Also there are plenty of jabs of "like a girl," etc. that I think we as readers are supposed to think are witty and clever.) I also found myself very uncomfortable at times with how rape felt like it was just sprinkled into the plot, and especially with the

trivially simple redemption arc for one would-be rapist

, as well as with the conflation of being paid for sex with being raped at a couple of points. Also the book felt VERY heterosexual-- which is fine! I get that a lot of books will not include queerness, BUT-- in a way that totally shut off/made fun of the closest things to queerness happening in the background (two men in close proximity, etc.). And again, I get that that's to be expected in a lot of books. But all of these things put together were just especially disappointing for a book that's attempting to convey how insidious and damaging existing societal power structures can be. I wanted the writing to convey more self-reflection than it did.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, and Slavery

Moderate: Rape

Minor: Sexism

lemonwrlds's review against another edition

adventurous emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Bullying, Alcohol, Animal death, Body shaming, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Body horror, Cannibalism, Classism, Death, Domestic abuse, Child death, Confinement, Blood, Excrement, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Sexism, Xenophobia, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Violence, War, Ableism, Child abuse, Genocide, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide attempt, Torture, Murder, Self harm, Kidnapping, Colonisation, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, Drug use, and Grief

Minor: Sexual assault and Sexual content