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kelseeeg's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
This book was entertaining to a certain point, definitely similar to hunger games. The setting in the beginning part was more interesting to me because it was more focused on the space aspect. The book doesn’t take a very intersectional view point (discusses class but mostly stays within white cishet patriarchal norms)—disappointing and distracting from the plot. It was creative but it read a little small-minded at times. I’ll read the next one though, I am curious where it will go and how it might grow.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Physical abuse, Violence, and War
Moderate: Alcoholism, Misogyny, and Rape
porcinitortellini's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-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
4.0
I'm not going to lie, I almost put this book down because of how Darrow was in the beginning of the book, but a really good friend insisted I keep going and I'm glad I did. This series has become one of my favorites. This book feels a little YA due to the age of the characters, but halfway through the book you forget how young they are (late teens). There IS character development, which kept me hooked and I felt the character development worked well with the plot. Darrow still sometimes feels like a Gary Stu, but he became rather endearing so I'll overlook it this one time.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Murder, War, and Classism
Moderate: Alcoholism and Sexism
Minor: Sexual content
There is a trope in here that is usually a MAJOR turn-off for me in sci-fi, but is unfortunately hard to avoid in the genre (I think some of you can see where I'm going with this...). It's a little bit of a spoiler so read at your own risk:kermittothebit's review against another edition
I'm reading others' reviews and it's as if we were reading different novels. One star.
I had the overwhelming feeling that I was reading poorly-done fanfiction, even though I wasn't focused on its similarities with Hunger Games. The writing is atrocious. The main character is one-dimensional, arrogant, contradictory, and seemingly stupid. The plot is so lacking that it felt like I was missing entire portions of writing; that I was just jumping between someone's ideas for a plot without any of the fleshing-out that makes characters interesting, does world-building, or gets you invested in any character. The most complicated character was his uncle, and even that was confusing.
The world is poorly done: With barely any world-building done, you're asked to accept that a society that achieved widespread genetic engineering (capable of altering iris coloring and the NUMBER OF FINGERS ON HUMAN HANDS??? without any side-effects?) has not figured out how to use machinery to do tasks like mining, rather than using slavery. I only got 71 pages in, so hopefully there's some "it happened before and everyone was killed off, society restarted" explanation, but...the entire mining society is so dumb that they never explored the (apparently body-sized) ventilation system that dumps directly out into a park? Or a step back, they asked how their atmosphere inside Mars was being generated and maintained (i.e. not leaking out to the surface or being affected in any way by their expansive mining) without any visible machinery to do so? (How would they not know there were vents???) They never asked why they have televisions in the main commons but don't have any other engineering feats? Also, and maybe this one is on me, but I just didn't love the child labor or marriage-at-puberty points. Maybe they're there to make life seem extra horrible, but it's incredibly problematic that it's mentioned (unjust in itself) but then never challenged (the main character just loves his child wife, and there's no mention of WHY it's a problem, like a lack of maturity or choice or discomfort with sex or anything). An author would be crucified if they made slavery an inherent part of their world but then NEVER mentioned anything that indicated that slavery is in any way problematic.
The main character is poorly done: (And that's on me, I think I should have judged the book by the four-square-inch gloss-covered picture of the leather-clad author doing his #Smolder on the UPPER left corner of the back cover. And if you think I'm being too harsh, I'd like to note that the words Pierce and Brown were indeed used within the first 30 pages) He has NO REACTION to seeing the garden for the first time. He is entirely motivated for his love of his wife...who is described only as beautiful (way. too. many. times.) and rebellious...until after her death, when someone immediately shits on her for not actually being rebellious or strong ENOUGH. She's smart enough to find a vent that no one else has even thought to look for (or to explore after her entire workshop becomes aware of it???) but the world-saving is left to her (apparently also incredibly handsome, eye-roll) child husband, because he's....a Hell-diver? Is that supposed to mean Brave? Because it looked a whole lot like Stupid when he miscalculated his jump, burned his hand, and almost lost his foot out of a burning desire to buy into the social-manipulation of the productivity competition.
I have more complaints but this is starting to feel like playing with my food.
I literally had more fun and used more of my brain writing this review than reading this book. Life is too short and my shelves are too packed to try this one again.
I had the overwhelming feeling that I was reading poorly-done fanfiction, even though I wasn't focused on its similarities with Hunger Games. The writing is atrocious. The main character is one-dimensional, arrogant, contradictory, and seemingly stupid. The plot is so lacking that it felt like I was missing entire portions of writing; that I was just jumping between someone's ideas for a plot without any of the fleshing-out that makes characters interesting, does world-building, or gets you invested in any character. The most complicated character was his uncle, and even that was confusing.
The world is poorly done: With barely any world-building done, you're asked to accept that
The main character is poorly done: (And that's on me, I think I should have judged the book by the four-square-inch gloss-covered picture of the leather-clad author doing his #Smolder on the UPPER left corner of the back cover. And if you think I'm being too harsh, I'd like to note that the words Pierce and Brown were indeed used within the first 30 pages)
I have more complaints but this is starting to feel like playing with my food.
I literally had more fun and used more of my brain writing this review than reading this book. Life is too short and my shelves are too packed to try this one again.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Slavery, Police brutality, Fire/Fire injury, and Classism
aelytacchan's review against another edition
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Toxic relationship, Blood, Excrement, Grief, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
hapalyn's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Death, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Cursing, Rape, Excrement, Kidnapping, and Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Alcoholism and Sexual assault
5 stars. If you can push through the first 70 pages, you're honestly set. I was definitely like... "this is the book everyone's raving about...?" until I hit around that mark and everything finally unfolded. This is for people who like: -Fast plots -LOTS of tension (lots of "waiting for the other shoe to drop") -Dystopian & Scifi (however, I am NOT a scifi fan, and I really really enjoyed this) -Underdog MC -The Hunger Games (specifically the actual hunger games.... it's not going to be 100% exact, but I can see the correlation. Keep your expectations realistic!) This is NOT for: -Anyone who is sensitive to blood, death, injuries, all the squeamish things. -Anyone who is heavily triggered by sexual assault and rape (this book is pretty blunt with those terms and doesn't specifically detail rape scenes, but it's implied and acknowledged). With that all being said, what I enjoyed most was the tension, the quickness of the plot (I didn't find myself bored waiting for 50 pages of world building after every single action scene), the cleverness of the fights, the characters were all very interesting to me, and a lot more. I think this book is obviously good, and I have high expectations that the rest of the series will be way better. Because it's the first book in the series, it's easy to look past some of the pacing at the start. 1000% will be reading the other books in this series!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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Police brutality, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
sammykay25's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
So I really like where this is going and I like the writing a lot. I think the world is very interesting and I can tell the series is really going to pick up. I just really didn't love the war game plot line. It didn't really capture me and just wasn't for me. I'm still excited to continue though.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Physical abuse, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Sexual violence and Cannibalism
alvyv's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
inspiring
fast-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? Yes
3.75
I enjoyed the world building and the social hierarchy is interesting.
Similar to the Hunger Games on how they do have a competition and there is a very specific social hierarchy with clear separation, but I think it’s unique on how it is written and how the story builds. I’m excited to read the next book.
Similar to the Hunger Games on how they do have a competition and there is a very specific social hierarchy with clear separation, but I think it’s unique on how it is written and how the story builds. I’m excited to read the next book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Misogyny, Rape, Suicide, and Violence
Minor: Cannibalism
its_van_vulpen's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Minor: Alcoholism, Cannibalism, and Alcohol
nav26's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-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? No
4.0
I met the author once at a bookstore I worked at when he came to sign copies of the latest books in this series. Everyone had said the series was really good, so eventually I downloaded the ebook and it sat in my app for a while. Finally got around to reading it, and wow - I enjoyed it so much more than I thought I would. I'm not usually a huge sci fi person but this really kept my interest. The story is interesting, there are lots of characters, tonnes of twists and surprises, and it was genuinely super enjoyable. It helped that the audiobook narrator was FANTASTIC and actually changed his voice for different parts. Already borrowed the next one from the library!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Sexual assault, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Murder, Sexual harassment, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal death, Rape, and Colonisation
Minor: Alcoholism and Alcohol