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A review by ninaprime
Red Rising by Pierce Brown

adventurous dark
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No

3.75

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.
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