Reviews with content warning for Death - Iron Gold

“If you are wise and lucky and live long as me, you will learn that pain is just a drop in the sea”…So feel all of it, boy, before time makes you forget”

It always seems to be a struggle to continue a series after an initial end point, and the fourth book in the Red Rising saga by Pierce Brown is no different. The first half of the book really struggled to get into gear and I think a lot of that is the introduction of having multiple POVs.

The chapters in the longest book in the series are broken up between four perspectives. Returning from the first three books is Darrow, now 10 years older after the time jump. He is still the most interesting perspective to me. Brown does a great job of showing how 10 years of war have drained this man, turned him into something he never wanted to become. You really get to see him struggle with leaving is family, and the distance that it has created between them.

The other perspectives lag behind, they include a Red named Lyria, who was brought out of the mines but feels left behind by the new Republic, Ephraim, former Aries member turned thief, and Lysander, former Lune who was next in line for the throne before the events of the first three books.

The non-Darrow perspectives get better in the second half once the plots start to develop, but the first half really struggled to get me to care about them. By the end they are all left in interesting positions that make good cliffhangers.

Overall I enjoyed coming back to this world and enjoyed the time jump, but I am still in a wait and see approach to see if continuing the series after what was a good ending in Morning Star (Book 3) was the right move.

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Winning was easy, young man. Governing's harder.

It's 10 years after Darrow and the Gang defeated(?) the Society, and 2 years after I read Morning Star. Did I have to read a recap to remember everything that happened in the original trilogy? Absolutely. But I think this book does a good job of getting you up to speed. The gist: shit's still bad.

I liked the addition of more POVs here, especially since I find Darrow INSUFFERABLE in this book. I get his thinking, but his thinking is SO alpha male that I cannot abide it. Maybe listen and work with your super smart and savvy wife for once, Darrow??? But no, woe is him. His way or the highway.

Lyria is my baby girl and I cannot allow any harm to come to her. I suspect Pierce Brown and I will have to come to blows about this as the series goes on.

Overall I enjoyed the plot here more than I did the original trilogy, because I find the concept of Reconstruction more interesting than Revolution itself. This book was a ton of set-up for the rest of the series, so I'm still withholding judgment on a lot of things (mainly you, Lysander). Minus a star because of all the graphic violence, which I'll never be a fan of. I know people love it. I know it's copying a lot of IRL history. But I could have lived my life content having never read a detailed description of a man being torn apart from the inside, you know? Sorry to be lame or whatever!!

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