Reviews

Light Bringer by Pierce Brown

aceinit's review against another edition

2.0

What a frustrating read, and one that pretty much managed to kill my love for the series. For a book that spends an awful lot of time traveling the galaxy, we never really seem to get anywhere, and time that could have been spent advancing the plot (or better yet, cut entirely to trim an excess of narrative fat) is spent monologuing about noble histories of Gold, or family histories, or blah blah blah.

Other, more specific, notes of general frustration:

Spoiler

•The Figment plot thread, which was an unnecessary and over the top addition anyway, was dropped completely and kicked under a rug as soon as Brown could manage it.

•The total Iron Man 3 Mandarin-ing of Volsung Fa. (Sp? I've done the whole series on audio.)

•Literally everyone coming back from the dead. Again.

•It's totally okay to be a mas-murdering warlord because you read a book about zen platitudes so now we can support you despite the whole 'mass murder' thing.

•Darrow continuing to be a total idiot in trusting everyone he meets to be honorable despite being betrayed how many times now?

•Darrow having the AUDACITY to call out other allies for being too trigger-happy in killing Big Bads when literally all his current problems could have been solved by killing approximately 3 specific people wayyyyyyy back in Books 1-3. But they had names, and fancy family histories and whatnot, and were not anonymous Iron Rain victims, so killing them would have been baaaaadddddddd and totally not honorable, OKAY?! and gods forbid that whatever passes for Darrow's honor be tainted for even like half a second.

•The complete inability of the audiobook crew to get it together when it comes to voice actors. Books 1-3 had the wonderful Tim Gerard Reynolds. Book 4 gave us new voices for Lyria, Lysander, Ephraim, and Mustang, only to replace almost all of them in book 5, and then this installment goes back to Reynolds only. Consistency is important, and this kind of shit needs to be planned in ahead, especially on a series as popular as Rising.

•Woooooooowwwwwww, Lysander went from precocious teenager to full-on C U Next Tuesday there at the end. (Okay, this one's not a complaint, but again, see previous bullet point for how much of his own mass-murdering brand of nonsense could have been prevented back in book 3).

I'm just really not sure how I am supposed to want to continue a series where most of the main characters are now irredeemably terrible people and various degrees of tyrant; where no one actually stays dead (except Ragnar, the Gwen Stacy of the Rising); where any new and interesting characters we do get are either shunted aside as soon as possible or turned into a mockery or themselves rather quickly, and where each new installment is 600 pages of trudging drudgery and long-windedness that manages to have almost zero meaningful character interaction.

Will I read Red God? Yes, because at this point I am deep enough in that I need to know the ending.

Will I enjoy it? Almost certainly not.

der_kiffer's review

dark emotional funny inspiring reflective sad tense medium-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

jpbarberis's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.5

holliemae's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

katarym's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Love love love this book, such a palate cleanser from Dark Age. Although fairly predictable for most, it felt a little vindicating after the depression fest of the last book.

sameriffic's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

kaja9213's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.75

elisasophie's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny reflective sad 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

Fuck no.
I’ve been in tears for the past hour. . . Pierce Brown HOW DARE YOU!

rhiwind93's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional medium-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

4.75

lafrederick's review against another edition

2.75

I had gotten used to multiple narrators for this series. The use of only one narrator for all parts made out really hard to follow. It was pretty boring compared to the rest of the series and if you weren't paying very close attention, which I found hard to do for this book,  you would miss who's story you were listening to. I was confused at times, trying to figure out who's storyline I was listening to