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mnkeemagick's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
**LONG AND SPOILERS AHEAD**
Having finally read this book after it's long stint on my TBR, I must say that I'm disappointed. It seems to me that this is a book that neatly falls into the hype over substance category.
This is the story of a "lower Red", the lowest members of a color based caste system, as he realizes his life of mining under the surface of Mars to aid in terraforming efforts is a lie. He is awakened to this lie and enters the fold of a group of revolutionaries that wish to place him high in society that they might overthrow their oppressive color caste system.
To start, our protagonist Darrow is definitely a Mary Sue esque character, exceeding all expectation in strategy, intelligence, and physical prowess despite being a 16 year old whose whole life has been relegated to mining, drinking, and fighting. It's expressly mentioned that he's different from other Reds and lower colors, that he is a new step in evolution that is naturally above the others. Even after his transformation into a Gold where he is enhanced so that he can begin working his way through the upper reaches of society, he is described often as more than the standard for their perfectly crafted selves.
More dexterous in a new body he has to learn to function in, stronger despite size, smart enough that he is one of the highest scorers of the entry exam, to the point he must be interrogated to determine if and how he cheated, and immediately having a mind for logic puzzles and politics. All against people who were bred, raised, and literally modified as he was for their entire lives to do these things. He even prevails over those who have already passed the testing and are considered the highest of the high.
Yet at the same time, he's naive or easily fooled as the plot needs. In the last hundred or so pages he's caught in a trap alone 3 separate times using the same trick.
Then there's his motivation, given to him expressly and with no subtlety by his wife in the early stages of the book, cemented by her martyrdom. She is literally written as an exposition tool to open his eyes and die, then be pined after as needed. Much the same is true of his few interactions with lower colors after he leaves the mines. Symbols of virtue or strife, but certainly not people.
The world building is haphazard and doesn't make much sense. It's loosely tied to Greco-Roman mythos, mostly in name and style more than substance or message. There are little details surrounding the story happening on Mars that irk me, namely the constant thinking about how they are in "low gravity" or specifying that it's 0.376 Earth gravity even though he has spent his entire life on Mars and only learns the difference when training his new body under higher gravity to strengthen it. Names and references aren't consistent, with images given from Egypt, the Bible, and The Reaper. It's frustrating that there's so many little details constantly being shoved at you to remember it's on Mars, only to have slips, inconsistencies, and missed opportunities like the artificial fortress that watches over the game is referred to as Olympus when it could have been set in a valley at the base of the actual Olympus Mons on Mars.
There's also odd societal tidbits that nag at me throughout. This story apparently takes place around 700 years after Earth begins terraforming the solar system, and 300 years after they have successfully done so on Mars, keeping the Reds underground as slave labor to produce Helium. This led me to believe that the Reds were somehow kept a secret, that the upper world is more ignorant with dark forces at the top being malicious, but I was wrong.
Apparently all the people on the surface, including OTHER REDS, know that this is a thing and just don't do anything. Centuries of being complacent with actual slavery and regular death with no social movement at all, explained and handwaved away as people being disappeared when they speak out, even though there must be billions of them watching considering its said that there's at least a billion Reds just underground. No matter how brutal an empire is, there would be more than just The Sons of Ares trying to do something.
I think this all feels so underthought because I noted a delineation in the book where we got to the part I feel Brown actually originally wanted to write and haphazardly built a world around it to make it fit.
There's also a bit about the most inhuman, animalistic, and violent caste being "Obsidian". Not that we ever meet one, mostly sticking to what seem to me to be very Irish coded (and a little stereotypes) Reds and the very European, largely British Golds.
All that being said, there's a solid change in the writing once we enter the game. The entrance and exam this world uses to determine the baseline for the top of the top. This section, while full of tropes from other YA Dystopia, is much more engaging.
Golds enter an elite testing ground after their entrance exams, 1200 total, where they will be sorted into 1 of 12 Hogwarts houses named after the major Gods of the Roman pantheon. Once sorted, they're dragged away in the night, dropped into stone cells naked in pairs, and only one gets to leave. The 1200 become 600 as the high testers cull the lowest scorers and they're dropped into a valley with fortresses and resources with a simple goal: conquer all the other houses.
I like this play on the battle Royale, especially when it's initially mentioned that they're not supposed to kill other students intentionally. It's a nice twist on the format, it's much more cohesive and engaging, even though it has it's own faults.
The not intentionally killing students goes out the window almost immediately. The themes here are darker and I think intended to be more shocking, especially the instances of sexual assault that are again just using women, most of whom are nameless and faceless, as shock props for the story and not characters. The women who are named largely treat this as something either deserved for weakness (per their cultural upbringing) or something to simply heal from, minus one who finds it particularly repulsive.
There's plenty of lagging about as this section takes almost an entire in-book year, lots of space initially dedicated to more or less wandering at the start. None of the twists land because they're telegraphed so hard.
As with the rest of the book, the messaging is about as subtle as a shotgun. Even when they make minor philosophical stabs at violence not being the answer, all their problems and messages are solved or perpetuated with violence. It's even alluded to early on that dreamers and peaceful martyrs are worthless, a dime a dozen, while violence is the only way to really change anything.
All told, not great. I'm leaving some space for the shallowness and the prose (the choppy little sentences and poorly executed plays to make our Mary Sue seem a genius warrior philosopher grated on me) as it's largely considered YA and was a debut. I wouldn't recommend it to friends but read it if you want, but after seeing more of the same in the Golden Son excerpt, I'm going to leave the series here.
Having finally read this book after it's long stint on my TBR, I must say that I'm disappointed. It seems to me that this is a book that neatly falls into the hype over substance category.
This is the story of a "lower Red", the lowest members of a color based caste system, as he realizes his life of mining under the surface of Mars to aid in terraforming efforts is a lie. He is awakened to this lie and enters the fold of a group of revolutionaries that wish to place him high in society that they might overthrow their oppressive color caste system.
To start, our protagonist Darrow is definitely a Mary Sue esque character, exceeding all expectation in strategy, intelligence, and physical prowess despite being a 16 year old whose whole life has been relegated to mining, drinking, and fighting. It's expressly mentioned that he's different from other Reds and lower colors, that he is a new step in evolution that is naturally above the others. Even after his transformation into a Gold where he is enhanced so that he can begin working his way through the upper reaches of society, he is described often as more than the standard for their perfectly crafted selves.
More dexterous in a new body he has to learn to function in, stronger despite size, smart enough that he is one of the highest scorers of the entry exam, to the point he must be interrogated to determine if and how he cheated, and immediately having a mind for logic puzzles and politics. All against people who were bred, raised, and literally modified as he was for their entire lives to do these things. He even prevails over those who have already passed the testing and are considered the highest of the high.
Yet at the same time, he's naive or easily fooled as the plot needs. In the last hundred or so pages he's caught in a trap alone 3 separate times using the same trick.
Then there's his motivation, given to him expressly and with no subtlety by his wife in the early stages of the book, cemented by her martyrdom. She is literally written as an exposition tool to open his eyes and die, then be pined after as needed. Much the same is true of his few interactions with lower colors after he leaves the mines. Symbols of virtue or strife, but certainly not people.
The world building is haphazard and doesn't make much sense. It's loosely tied to Greco-Roman mythos, mostly in name and style more than substance or message. There are little details surrounding the story happening on Mars that irk me, namely the constant thinking about how they are in "low gravity" or specifying that it's 0.376 Earth gravity even though he has spent his entire life on Mars and only learns the difference when training his new body under higher gravity to strengthen it. Names and references aren't consistent, with images given from Egypt, the Bible, and The Reaper. It's frustrating that there's so many little details constantly being shoved at you to remember it's on Mars, only to have slips, inconsistencies, and missed opportunities like the artificial fortress that watches over the game is referred to as Olympus when it could have been set in a valley at the base of the actual Olympus Mons on Mars.
There's also odd societal tidbits that nag at me throughout. This story apparently takes place around 700 years after Earth begins terraforming the solar system, and 300 years after they have successfully done so on Mars, keeping the Reds underground as slave labor to produce Helium. This led me to believe that the Reds were somehow kept a secret, that the upper world is more ignorant with dark forces at the top being malicious, but I was wrong.
Apparently all the people on the surface, including OTHER REDS, know that this is a thing and just don't do anything. Centuries of being complacent with actual slavery and regular death with no social movement at all, explained and handwaved away as people being disappeared when they speak out, even though there must be billions of them watching considering its said that there's at least a billion Reds just underground. No matter how brutal an empire is, there would be more than just The Sons of Ares trying to do something.
I think this all feels so underthought because I noted a delineation in the book where we got to the part I feel Brown actually originally wanted to write and haphazardly built a world around it to make it fit.
There's also a bit about the most inhuman, animalistic, and violent caste being "Obsidian". Not that we ever meet one, mostly sticking to what seem to me to be very Irish coded (and a little stereotypes) Reds and the very European, largely British Golds.
All that being said, there's a solid change in the writing once we enter the game. The entrance and exam this world uses to determine the baseline for the top of the top. This section, while full of tropes from other YA Dystopia, is much more engaging.
Golds enter an elite testing ground after their entrance exams, 1200 total, where they will be sorted into 1 of 12 Hogwarts houses named after the major Gods of the Roman pantheon. Once sorted, they're dragged away in the night, dropped into stone cells naked in pairs, and only one gets to leave. The 1200 become 600 as the high testers cull the lowest scorers and they're dropped into a valley with fortresses and resources with a simple goal: conquer all the other houses.
I like this play on the battle Royale, especially when it's initially mentioned that they're not supposed to kill other students intentionally. It's a nice twist on the format, it's much more cohesive and engaging, even though it has it's own faults.
The not intentionally killing students goes out the window almost immediately. The themes here are darker and I think intended to be more shocking, especially the instances of sexual assault that are again just using women, most of whom are nameless and faceless, as shock props for the story and not characters. The women who are named largely treat this as something either deserved for weakness (per their cultural upbringing) or something to simply heal from, minus one who finds it particularly repulsive.
There's plenty of lagging about as this section takes almost an entire in-book year, lots of space initially dedicated to more or less wandering at the start. None of the twists land because they're telegraphed so hard.
As with the rest of the book, the messaging is about as subtle as a shotgun. Even when they make minor philosophical stabs at violence not being the answer, all their problems and messages are solved or perpetuated with violence. It's even alluded to early on that dreamers and peaceful martyrs are worthless, a dime a dozen, while violence is the only way to really change anything.
All told, not great. I'm leaving some space for the shallowness and the prose (the choppy little sentences and poorly executed plays to make our Mary Sue seem a genius warrior philosopher grated on me) as it's largely considered YA and was a debut. I wouldn't recommend it to friends but read it if you want, but after seeing more of the same in the Golden Son excerpt, I'm going to leave the series here.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Cannibalism
emmonsannae's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.5
The plot of this book starts out real rough but does get better. Its characterization, though, is maybe some of the worst I’ve read. (Can I buy a likable or intriguing character of substance, anyone, please?) The male characters are boring, the female ones either are boring or (in a shocking twist) die to advance the nonexistent development of the protagonist, and the protagonist is so flat I could use his growth arc as a straightedge. Wouldn’t have finished reading if it wasn’t a book club read. Sorry, not the one for me.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Death, Rape, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Murder, Pregnancy, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
zozoann's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
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? It's complicated
4.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Rape, Sexual violence, Violence, and Blood
gemstonejasper's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
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
4.25
This book's been on my radar for a while, but I finally bit the bullet and started it for a read-along leading up to the release of the last book. I went in pretty much completely blind. All I knew was that it was a sci-fi dystopian set on Mars. I had also heard that it gives Hunger Games vibes.
Someone also said that this is a YA book, but it isn't. Darrow starts as a 16-year-old, but I have no doubt it was written for adults. Every time I was reminded that he was 16, it pulled me out of the story for a moment. It felt jarring. He didn't at all act 16. The audiobook narrator sounded like he was at least in his 20s. He was way too mature to be 16 and he starts out the story with a wife. I know that it was probably meant to demonstrate that kids are working these dangerous jobs in the mines. And his life experiences could 100% cause him to seem more mature than most 16-year-olds. But there are real developmental limitations on how his mind would work. So that pulled me out a few times.
To be honest, the book starts pretty slow in my opinion. It took me several chapters to really get into it. I liked it, but I would go a couple of days between chapters. But once they got into the school and things ramped up, I was in it. It just kept getting more and more intense. It was a wild ride, but I loved it. There were lots of surprises.
I would get a little annoyed because Darrow's motivation seemed to only revolve around his wife. It does struggle with the "woman written by a man" syndrome where his wife only existed and died to motivate him. Also, violence against women is used repeatedly to move the story forward. There were woman characters who only existed it be assaulted, and then Darrow could react to the abuse. There are other ways to show that someone is bad. Not every single bad guy needs to assault the women around them. But the rest of the book was really good, so I can overlook that.
I also got kind of annoyed sometimes that Darrow didn't really make many mistakes. He did, but they came across to me as mistakes he had to make for the plot rather than mistakes he actually would make. He didn't seem to make legit mistakes.
Note: Sevro was the best by far. Protect him at all costs.
Someone also said that this is a YA book, but it isn't. Darrow starts as a 16-year-old, but I have no doubt it was written for adults. Every time I was reminded that he was 16, it pulled me out of the story for a moment. It felt jarring. He didn't at all act 16. The audiobook narrator sounded like he was at least in his 20s. He was way too mature to be 16 and he starts out the story with a wife. I know that it was probably meant to demonstrate that kids are working these dangerous jobs in the mines. And his life experiences could 100% cause him to seem more mature than most 16-year-olds. But there are real developmental limitations on how his mind would work. So that pulled me out a few times.
To be honest, the book starts pretty slow in my opinion. It took me several chapters to really get into it. I liked it, but I would go a couple of days between chapters. But once they got into the school and things ramped up, I was in it. It just kept getting more and more intense. It was a wild ride, but I loved it. There were lots of surprises.
I would get a little annoyed because Darrow's motivation seemed to only revolve around his wife. It does struggle with the "woman written by a man" syndrome where his wife only existed and died to motivate him. Also, violence against women is used repeatedly to move the story forward. There were woman characters who only existed it be assaulted, and then Darrow could react to the abuse. There are other ways to show that someone is bad. Not every single bad guy needs to assault the women around them. But the rest of the book was really good, so I can overlook that.
Note: Sevro was the best by far. Protect him at all costs.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Sexual harassment, and War
Minor: Cannibalism
lvl52_grant's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
There is a lot to like about this book. The setting and overall plot are immensely intriguing, and the promise of a rebellion brewing in the system has me hooked for the rest of the series, but oh my GOD is the main character annoying in the beginning! By the end he just becomes a vessel for cool monologs, which is fine and some of them hit really hard, but I felt like the story was constantly working itself up to zero. Darrow is a bit of a Mary Sue, constantly one step ahead of the enemy and reader, but the most annoying thing is he knows it. It was the monologs, which I heard first from a voice actor on Instagram, that got my attention, and they were the only saving grace of a lackluster protagonist. Everything else was awesome though, and I'm very curious how the rest of the series goes.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture, Violence, Grief, Medical trauma, and War
Moderate: Sexual violence
ehknits's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and War
Moderate: Rape, Sexual violence, and Slavery
Minor: Cannibalism and Injury/Injury detail
emmalaya's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Rape, Sexism, Violence, Blood, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Homophobia and Sexual violence
linkwoodpub's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- 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
4.0
Incredible execution on a very cheesy premise. It took me a long time to dive in, but once I did it was an absolute rollercoaster (in a good way).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Hate crime, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Vomit, Medical content, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
kaylanicholsmith's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Hmm... where to begin with this....
I feel like I was really excited to get to this finally because of all the hype that I've heard over all the years and it was... fine? This book is kinda dense. You get thrown right into the world of Darrow, the main character, and you are learning as you go. There is nothing about the world, the language, the setting that is really explained to you. Darrow, as a character, kinda expects people to just know what he is talking about. Sometimes this narrative style works for me and other times it doesn't. Ultimately, the writing style as a whole just wasn't my favorite. I kept trying to remind myself that we are primarily reading from the perspective of teenage boys (yuck) but it just felt over the top with the juvenile quality sometimes. Also, my biggest pet peeve in books, any genre, is when the author has to insert fart jokes or fart commentary (usually as an insult to another character). I just can't stand it. The amount of times the author used "turd" could also warrant some kind of an award.
Despite the issues with the writing my biggest question with this story was the handling of sexual assault. On one hand, I feel like the author did do something a little different than a lot of other male fantasy/scifi writers - the female characters were not only there to be sexually assaulted and serve no other purpose. However, on the other hand, the amount of sexual assault still felt gratuitous and the female characters underdeveloped. While there is nothing graphic on the page, there is ample talk about the sexual assaults taking place, and not all of it is condemning the actions taking place. Granted, sexual violence is quite commonplace in war situations and the bystander effect is a terrible thing that happens everyday, but the author didn't really seem to tackle the issue quite as head on as he might have thought he was. Perhaps that was because there is SO MUCH going on in this first book - I think that we cover about 2 years in the course of this first book - and it flies. There is no real delving into any of the social issues that are being raised in the book. Everything felt super surface level.
I haven't totally written off the rest of the series but I'm in no major rush to continue on. I wonder if, as the story continues to build, that the commentary will become stronger and the writing more palatable but who knows. Maybe I never will... we'll see.
I feel like I was really excited to get to this finally because of all the hype that I've heard over all the years and it was... fine? This book is kinda dense. You get thrown right into the world of Darrow, the main character, and you are learning as you go. There is nothing about the world, the language, the setting that is really explained to you. Darrow, as a character, kinda expects people to just know what he is talking about. Sometimes this narrative style works for me and other times it doesn't. Ultimately, the writing style as a whole just wasn't my favorite. I kept trying to remind myself that we are primarily reading from the perspective of teenage boys (yuck) but it just felt over the top with the juvenile quality sometimes. Also, my biggest pet peeve in books, any genre, is when the author has to insert fart jokes or fart commentary (usually as an insult to another character). I just can't stand it. The amount of times the author used "turd" could also warrant some kind of an award.
Despite the issues with the writing my biggest question with this story was the handling of sexual assault. On one hand, I feel like the author did do something a little different than a lot of other male fantasy/scifi writers - the female characters were not only there to be sexually assaulted and serve no other purpose. However, on the other hand, the amount of sexual assault still felt gratuitous and the female characters underdeveloped. While there is nothing graphic on the page, there is ample talk about the sexual assaults taking place, and not all of it is condemning the actions taking place. Granted, sexual violence is quite commonplace in war situations and the bystander effect is a terrible thing that happens everyday, but the author didn't really seem to tackle the issue quite as head on as he might have thought he was. Perhaps that was because there is SO MUCH going on in this first book - I think that we cover about 2 years in the course of this first book - and it flies. There is no real delving into any of the social issues that are being raised in the book. Everything felt super surface level.
I haven't totally written off the rest of the series but I'm in no major rush to continue on. I wonder if, as the story continues to build, that the commentary will become stronger and the writing more palatable but who knows. Maybe I never will... we'll see.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Torture, Violence, and Blood
Moderate: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Gore, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Blood, Vomit, Cannibalism, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Classism
morbidqueen19's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
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? No
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Vomit, Murder, and War