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rachel_sherck's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
I started typing this review with my thumbs, beginning to list my many, many thoughts from simplest to most complex. As it went on and I delved into the “most complex,” my thumbs really flew, my blood pressure rose, and I circled back to the beginning of this text box, scrolled up, and lowered my rating from 4.0 to 3.0. 🤷♀️
Did I like this book? In so many ways, yes. The premise, the style of prose, the fabulous narration (I read this one in audio), and the setting all drew me in from the first pages. Which was kind of the problem. More on that later. 😝
When I began reading, I had that fabulous sensation that I was embarking on an epic adventure I would never forget. The beginning of the book steeped me in the world, planted dozens of seeds of curiosity, and also made me fall slightly in love with the audiobook narrator. And then disappointment started setting in.
Pacing
The pacing in this book felt very strange to me. At the outset my impression was that this would be an immersive story told in a close point of view, but by the end of the book, despite the first person/present tense, there was nonetheless distance between myself and the action. With a few exceptions, mostly battle sequences, more than half of this book I experienced at a distance, observing a war games plot that interested me only marginally, deeply missing the feeling evoked by the early chapters.
I know what I’m describing is a pacing and style preference. I’ve not read many reviews of this book (yet) but I noticed a few preferred the pacing of the later part of the book above the “slow” beginning. But the inconsistency in pace is what throws me, as it set my expectations for a nuanced, emotional, character-driven book but ultimately delivered a broad-strokes sequence of events surrounding Darrow and his fellow students’ strategy games.
Stakes and tension
We all knew that the games were just games and wouldn’t matter after a winner was declared, so it was frustrating to spend the bulk of the book on events that didn’t prompt any noticeable evolution of the main character, Darrow, or deepen our understanding of Gold culture, the history of humanity in this world, or anything significant on a world building level. Save a few casual details about the way that the carvers had built hyped up versions of earth animals and stocked Mars with them, but this amounted to only a few lines. Still it was one of the few things I enjoyed about the majority of this book past the first act.
I clung to hope that if I could get through the long game of the “school,” the book would return to the themes that it introduced long enough to hook me in the beginning. But honestly, by the end I had lost hope of that and only kept reading because I knew this was the first book in a long, acclaimed series, and I’m willing to read at least one more to give the series a solid opportunity to redeem itself.
Misogyny
I left this critique for last, but in a way it was the aspect of the book that most negatively affected my experience. I heard another reviewer describe the misogyny in this narrative (which is objectively present, and readers who disagree need to really ruminate on their own concepts of gender and sexism) as feeling like a belief system from our world that leached into the world of the story. That is so well expressed and resonated with me immediately. Let me get into it…
I don’t mind misogyny existing in fiction. In fact, sometimes its total absence can test my suspension of disbelief to a point where I’m just as frustrated as if it had been present without basis, the way it is in this book. But when misogyny is present in a book written in this century, I expect it to be depicted thoughtfully and accurately, and consciously and deliberately challenged on the page. And if it’s present in a book written in this century and set several hundred years in the future, in a society that is sufficiently functional to have colonized and terraformed the entire solar system, then I expect it to make sense.
Misogyny cont’d (sexism)
In Red Rising, there are clear gender roles in the society of the Reds where Darrow grew up. Only men go into the mines. Women are revered by Darrow as being a source of beauty, gentleness, etc., that in some ways defies the dirty and brutal existence of his people. And he’s 16 when the book begins, so a kind of chivalrous version of misogyny works for his point of view. But he never evolves beyond this, expressing no surprise when he meets the rebels and one of them is a woman (who, like everyone else in this book, particularly the women, is described in a fashion that centers her attractiveness. She is beautiful on the unscarred half of her face. Even more beautiful, apparently, than the wife Darrow is still purportedly mourning). Readers are seemingly expected to interpret the world outside of the mines as more egalitarian among the sexes. Men can be “pinks,” the caste of people enslaved for the purpose of sexual gratification, and women can go to the war college that Darrow ultimately attends.
Yet many characters, not just Darrow, consistently center the concepts of leadership and honor around men. I could reread this book with a highlighter and capture every instance of this, or you could skim the book yourself and easily find examples. So which is it? Is the world gender egalitarian or strictly patriarchal? Or is it in some tense state of transition, like the world we live in? There isn’t enough nuance here to know. Which tells me that the author and editors weren’t giving it much thought. Which is disappointing and depressingly unsurprising.
Anyway, by the time the story events became overtly sexist misogynistic, I had more or less accepted that this book was going to miss an opportunity to say something interesting about gender, but I still became increasingly tempted to quit reading. Sexual violence against women, off page and serving only to create moral outrage in the main character or demonstrate the depravity of his foes, abounds in this book to an almost comical degree. (Almost, because it’s really gross, therefore hard to see the comedy.) Homophobic insults are also an offhand feature in the banter of the war games bros. Darrow at one point takes a slave from another castle because she says she can cook, and the sum total of later references to her surround her doing the cooking. There are women in positions of note and authority among Darrow’s classmates, but only because they lean into the hyper masculine culture of the war games established by majority-male leadership. And still they are described as “girls,” occasionally praised for being pretty or gentle, and are grouped together in the narrator’s internal thoughts when he makes decisions about who will fight and who will tend to other tasks.
Lack of 🌈
Aside from the aforementioned homophobic banter, there is no acknowledgement of LGBTQIA+ persons, period. Much less actual representation. In a cast of future-humans so privileged by their wealth and caste they can do whatever they want, I find that as implausible as it is insensitive to the members of the reading community.
There is also a notable, strict gender binary, expressed by both Darrow and other characters. Honestly books that do the bare minimum—acknowledging that gender-queer persons exist—are so rare they thrill me. The ones that actually offer meaningful representation are incredibly hard to find. So, no surprise that this one fails in that respect but still, whenever a book uses “boys and girls” or “men and women” to refer to “all people,” the effect isn’t only lack of representation. It’s erasure.
tl;dr
Authors: if you’re going to build a vast, complex, technologically advanced future world where society is patriarchal, homophobic, and acknowledges only two genders, then you need to explain why it is the way it is, right there in the book.
If you do not, your silence on that topic will leave me with no choice but to assume you view those aspects of our present-day society as so inherent to human culture, so “natural,” that they are inevitable in any world, including the world you created.
So much of what draws me to speculative fiction is the opportunity to explore human potential, on an individual, political, and societal level. If you can’t offer me more than a transposition of my own, wearying reality, then you’ve missed an opportunity. And you’ve kind of pissed me off.
Did I like this book? In so many ways, yes. The premise, the style of prose, the fabulous narration (I read this one in audio), and the setting all drew me in from the first pages. Which was kind of the problem. More on that later. 😝
When I began reading, I had that fabulous sensation that I was embarking on an epic adventure I would never forget. The beginning of the book steeped me in the world, planted dozens of seeds of curiosity, and also made me fall slightly in love with the audiobook narrator. And then disappointment started setting in.
Pacing
The pacing in this book felt very strange to me. At the outset my impression was that this would be an immersive story told in a close point of view, but by the end of the book, despite the first person/present tense, there was nonetheless distance between myself and the action. With a few exceptions, mostly battle sequences, more than half of this book I experienced at a distance, observing a war games plot that interested me only marginally, deeply missing the feeling evoked by the early chapters.
I know what I’m describing is a pacing and style preference. I’ve not read many reviews of this book (yet) but I noticed a few preferred the pacing of the later part of the book above the “slow” beginning. But the inconsistency in pace is what throws me, as it set my expectations for a nuanced, emotional, character-driven book but ultimately delivered a broad-strokes sequence of events surrounding Darrow and his fellow students’ strategy games.
Stakes and tension
We all knew that the games were just games and wouldn’t matter after a winner was declared, so it was frustrating to spend the bulk of the book on events that didn’t prompt any noticeable evolution of the main character, Darrow, or deepen our understanding of Gold culture, the history of humanity in this world, or anything significant on a world building level. Save a few casual details about the way that the carvers had built hyped up versions of earth animals and stocked Mars with them, but this amounted to only a few lines. Still it was one of the few things I enjoyed about the majority of this book past the first act.
I clung to hope that if I could get through the long game of the “school,” the book would return to the themes that it introduced long enough to hook me in the beginning. But honestly, by the end I had lost hope of that and only kept reading because I knew this was the first book in a long, acclaimed series, and I’m willing to read at least one more to give the series a solid opportunity to redeem itself.
Misogyny
I left this critique for last, but in a way it was the aspect of the book that most negatively affected my experience. I heard another reviewer describe the misogyny in this narrative (which is objectively present, and readers who disagree need to really ruminate on their own concepts of gender and sexism) as feeling like a belief system from our world that leached into the world of the story. That is so well expressed and resonated with me immediately. Let me get into it…
I don’t mind misogyny existing in fiction. In fact, sometimes its total absence can test my suspension of disbelief to a point where I’m just as frustrated as if it had been present without basis, the way it is in this book. But when misogyny is present in a book written in this century, I expect it to be depicted thoughtfully and accurately, and consciously and deliberately challenged on the page. And if it’s present in a book written in this century and set several hundred years in the future, in a society that is sufficiently functional to have colonized and terraformed the entire solar system, then I expect it to make sense.
Misogyny cont’d (sexism)
In Red Rising, there are clear gender roles in the society of the Reds where Darrow grew up. Only men go into the mines. Women are revered by Darrow as being a source of beauty, gentleness, etc., that in some ways defies the dirty and brutal existence of his people. And he’s 16 when the book begins, so a kind of chivalrous version of misogyny works for his point of view. But he never evolves beyond this, expressing no surprise when he meets the rebels and one of them is a woman (who, like everyone else in this book, particularly the women, is described in a fashion that centers her attractiveness. She is beautiful on the unscarred half of her face. Even more beautiful, apparently, than the wife Darrow is still purportedly mourning). Readers are seemingly expected to interpret the world outside of the mines as more egalitarian among the sexes. Men can be “pinks,” the caste of people enslaved for the purpose of sexual gratification, and women can go to the war college that Darrow ultimately attends.
Yet many characters, not just Darrow, consistently center the concepts of leadership and honor around men. I could reread this book with a highlighter and capture every instance of this, or you could skim the book yourself and easily find examples. So which is it? Is the world gender egalitarian or strictly patriarchal? Or is it in some tense state of transition, like the world we live in? There isn’t enough nuance here to know. Which tells me that the author and editors weren’t giving it much thought. Which is disappointing and depressingly unsurprising.
Anyway, by the time the story events became overtly sexist misogynistic, I had more or less accepted that this book was going to miss an opportunity to say something interesting about gender, but I still became increasingly tempted to quit reading. Sexual violence against women, off page and serving only to create moral outrage in the main character or demonstrate the depravity of his foes, abounds in this book to an almost comical degree. (Almost, because it’s really gross, therefore hard to see the comedy.) Homophobic insults are also an offhand feature in the banter of the war games bros. Darrow at one point takes a slave from another castle because she says she can cook, and the sum total of later references to her surround her doing the cooking. There are women in positions of note and authority among Darrow’s classmates, but only because they lean into the hyper masculine culture of the war games established by majority-male leadership. And still they are described as “girls,” occasionally praised for being pretty or gentle, and are grouped together in the narrator’s internal thoughts when he makes decisions about who will fight and who will tend to other tasks.
Lack of 🌈
Aside from the aforementioned homophobic banter, there is no acknowledgement of LGBTQIA+ persons, period. Much less actual representation. In a cast of future-humans so privileged by their wealth and caste they can do whatever they want, I find that as implausible as it is insensitive to the members of the reading community.
There is also a notable, strict gender binary, expressed by both Darrow and other characters. Honestly books that do the bare minimum—acknowledging that gender-queer persons exist—are so rare they thrill me. The ones that actually offer meaningful representation are incredibly hard to find. So, no surprise that this one fails in that respect but still, whenever a book uses “boys and girls” or “men and women” to refer to “all people,” the effect isn’t only lack of representation. It’s erasure.
tl;dr
Authors: if you’re going to build a vast, complex, technologically advanced future world where society is patriarchal, homophobic, and acknowledges only two genders, then you need to explain why it is the way it is, right there in the book.
If you do not, your silence on that topic will leave me with no choice but to assume you view those aspects of our present-day society as so inherent to human culture, so “natural,” that they are inevitable in any world, including the world you created.
So much of what draws me to speculative fiction is the opportunity to explore human potential, on an individual, political, and societal level. If you can’t offer me more than a transposition of my own, wearying reality, then you’ve missed an opportunity. And you’ve kind of pissed me off.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, War, and Violence
Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, and Homophobia
rafacolog's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Murder, Body horror, Violence, Death, and Rape
_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.
Trigger Warnings: Murder, Sexual Assault, Body Mutilation, Cannabalism.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder, Violence, Body horror, Slavery, Gore, Death, and Sexual assault
Minor: Cannibalism and Animal death
nymreads's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture, Classism, Death of parent, Blood, Child death, Violence, Body horror, Colonisation, Confinement, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Medical content, Murder, Slavery, and War
Moderate: Animal death
tiana_king's review against another edition
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic friendship, Colonisation, Slavery, War, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Blood, Body horror, Classism, Murder, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, and Death
Moderate: Animal death and Body shaming
Minor: Cannibalism
kiwij96's review against another edition
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Blood, Colonisation, Violence, War, Classism, Death, Body horror, Death of parent, Gore, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Rape, Sexual assault, and Torture
Moderate: Grief, Animal death, and Cannibalism
naechan's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Body horror, Colonisation, Rape, Blood, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Cursing, Sexual violence, Torture, Animal death, Murder, Slavery, Grief, Child abuse, Cannibalism, Classism, War, Genocide, Death of parent, and Physical abuse
sometimes_samantha_reads's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
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? It's complicated
4.5
I read this book because it is my brother's favorite book. I ended up really liking it too! It's been so cool watching Darrow grow and I feel hisnsame struggle with some of the Golds he's met and knowing what he's ultimately there to do. I'm really interested in how book 2 is going to go. I'm waiting on the audiobook from my library. I was leary of Tim Gerrard at first but he's a great Darrow. I think if I switch to the print book now, it wouldn't be the same.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Classism, Death, Violence, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Body horror
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: Confinement, Cursing, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, Animal death, Blood, Bullying, Cannibalism, Classism, Alcoholism, Body horror, Death of parent, Excrement, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Alcohol, Colonisation, Death, Animal cruelty, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Hate crime, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Sexual harassment, Slavery, Toxic friendship, and Sexism
venus6277's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Sexual harassment, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Death, Toxic friendship, Body horror, Child death, Sexual assault, Gore, Murder, Rape, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail