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ninaprime 's review for:
Red Rising
by Pierce Brown
adventurous
dark
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
I can see why people love this series but I think I read it too late because I kept seeing comparisons to other books, like "Red Queen", "Ember in the Ashes," and "Dune." While I didn't particularly like Darrow as a main character, I appreciated how he used all his strengths to thrive in a brutal environment, while retaining empathy and the ability to see the complexity in the Golds. Brown spends a lot of time detailing the cruelty of the institution, to the extent its hard to read about these children maiming and raping and killing each other, which is how it should be. The situation on Mars and description of terraforming felt very realistic as a dystopia as well. The main thing that disappointed me was that the female characters seemed to just be motivation/support for Darrow's journey.
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child death, Death, Sexual violence, Blood, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Slavery, Torture, Cannibalism