A review by porcinitortellini
Red Rising by Pierce Brown

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I'm not going to lie, I almost put this book down because of how Darrow was in the beginning of the book, but a really good friend insisted I keep going and I'm glad I did. This series has become one of my favorites. This book feels a little YA due to the age of the characters, but halfway through the book you forget how young they are (late teens). There IS character development, which kept me hooked and I felt the character development worked well with the plot. Darrow still sometimes feels like a Gary Stu, but he became rather endearing so I'll overlook it this one time.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Child death, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Classism, Death, Rape, Murder, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Alcoholism and Sexism

Minor: Sexual content

There is a trope in here that is usually a MAJOR turn-off for me in sci-fi, but is unfortunately hard to avoid in the genre (I think some of you can see where I'm going with this...). It's a little bit of a spoiler so read at your own risk:

why the good golly GOSH DO WOMEN HAVE TO DIE TO ADVANCE THE PLOT OR GIVE THE MMC PURPOSE????