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A review by chonkydud
Red Rising by Pierce Brown
4.0
What I don’t get is the amount of people confused as to why Darrow was the guy to come out of nowhere and beat all these people. Because was that not the point. The kid does stumble mere months after he starts rising in ranks he stumbles because of a silly mistake but then he’s able to redeem himself and the reason he can go so far is because he is like no other gold before him. The book on many occasion mention his strength and dexterity. But on top of that I feel as though a large part of this “uprising” is merely the fact that he came into the situation with a different attitude then everyone else and was basically able to uplift the others with his strong conviction.
It’s mentioned throughout the book he has a rage that overwhelms. It’s the reason he almost gets recruited by Mercury and no doubt has a factor as to why he was chosen 10th out of a group of a 1000. But it’s mentioned near the end, from Darrow himself, that he is powered by love (for Eo of course). And surface level that is cheesy as fuck. All these years and your telling me all it took was love to change the status quo.
But Darrow is powered by love, compassion, brotherhood, all things that make him a Red and he clearly cares for those around him. You see him become strategical and prioritise logistics in situations later on but even after 100 pages he still lingers on the sorrow he feels at having to kill Julian. Darrow screwed up when deciding what to do with Titus and paid the price but later on he takes the burden on his shoulders when one of his men fuck up and while this was a strategic move it was one only he would make in the moment, to put his body in harms way for his army. He uses tactics to win the war but he also tries to choose a less cruel option in each scenario where people who don’t deserve it (the “slaves”) are put in harms way and it works in his favour.
He’s meant to be different so why wouldn’t he be able to do this. The game was rigged. Someone had to figure out how to unrig it eventually. Darrow was enough of a crazy bastard to be the pioneer.
Rant aside I loved this. It’s a 4 because I couldn’t bear reading the first 100 pages without taking a break every 20 minutes. I wasn’t bored but the start of the book was ever so tedious. Too many things to establish and stuff to get through. But the latter half of the book was splendid. Many friendships and betrayals and I loved all the characters we met barring a couple I wanted to punch.
It’s mentioned throughout the book he has a rage that overwhelms. It’s the reason he almost gets recruited by Mercury and no doubt has a factor as to why he was chosen 10th out of a group of a 1000. But it’s mentioned near the end, from Darrow himself, that he is powered by love (for Eo of course). And surface level that is cheesy as fuck. All these years and your telling me all it took was love to change the status quo.
But Darrow is powered by love, compassion, brotherhood, all things that make him a Red and he clearly cares for those around him. You see him become strategical and prioritise logistics in situations later on but even after 100 pages he still lingers on the sorrow he feels at having to kill Julian. Darrow screwed up when deciding what to do with Titus and paid the price but later on he takes the burden on his shoulders when one of his men fuck up and while this was a strategic move it was one only he would make in the moment, to put his body in harms way for his army. He uses tactics to win the war but he also tries to choose a less cruel option in each scenario where people who don’t deserve it (the “slaves”) are put in harms way and it works in his favour.
He’s meant to be different so why wouldn’t he be able to do this. The game was rigged. Someone had to figure out how to unrig it eventually. Darrow was enough of a crazy bastard to be the pioneer.
Rant aside I loved this. It’s a 4 because I couldn’t bear reading the first 100 pages without taking a break every 20 minutes. I wasn’t bored but the start of the book was ever so tedious. Too many things to establish and stuff to get through. But the latter half of the book was splendid. Many friendships and betrayals and I loved all the characters we met barring a couple I wanted to punch.