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A review by imaginary_sauropod
Red Rising by Pierce Brown
fast-paced
3.0
Darrow is a hell driver for his mining community, a skilled mining position. When his wife shows him that his life of serving to prepare Mars for habitation is a lie and then chooses to die during the punishment of lashing, he ends up being taken into a group called the sons of ares to help take down the rigid hierarchy of their society. This involves becoming a gold and playing their war game.
It is a young adult version of the hunger games. I almost put it down before the story really picked up because it is very sexist to both men and women. It is an exciting read, but it is not very forward looking. It also fails to frame rape during war as a power deal instead of a lust driven spoil of war. And an almost rapist/likely raped in the past gets no punishment because the woman said she didn’t want that (and that was that even though she was likely still in the shock phase and would’ve had different thoughts and feelings about it later as she continued to be in the same group and her almost rapist is rewarded with positions of power).
It’s like 1940’s gender with modern day rape apologist thinking (yes they are upset and they try to say it leaves scares that don’t heal, but it is lip service compared to what happens). Don’t worry, the main character isn’t the one responsible for trying to rape or almost rape, and many will be able to get through the story and think it did enough to say rape bad. I personally think it did not.
It is a young adult version of the hunger games. I almost put it down before the story really picked up because it is very sexist to both men and women. It is an exciting read, but it is not very forward looking. It also fails to frame rape during war as a power deal instead of a lust driven spoil of war. And an almost rapist/likely raped in the past gets no punishment because the woman said she didn’t want that (and that was that even though she was likely still in the shock phase and would’ve had different thoughts and feelings about it later as she continued to be in the same group and her almost rapist is rewarded with positions of power).
It’s like 1940’s gender with modern day rape apologist thinking (yes they are upset and they try to say it leaves scares that don’t heal, but it is lip service compared to what happens). Don’t worry, the main character isn’t the one responsible for trying to rape or almost rape, and many will be able to get through the story and think it did enough to say rape bad. I personally think it did not.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Suicide attempt and Rape