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A review by toggle_fow
Golden Son by Pierce Brown
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Oh, the drama. Oh, the trauma.
That about sums it up.
This book was better than the first one, which is good because if it was worse I would have been mad. Instead of the Color Coded Hunger Games we have the Color Coded Civil War. This is superior because there is a point to it and it proceeds mostly logically from action to reaction, unlike the first book's long stretches of total inaction broken up by wild flailing.
There are also quite a few good moments. Highlights include Darrow's taking of the ship through popular uprising, his honesty with Ragnar and Ragnar's overall development, his visit home, Sevro's being in on things, the Ares Reveal which I completely did not expect, the lie detector competition, and did I mention Sevro's being in on things?
Lots of people are dead now, and lots more people are introduced. Sevro is mine and everyone else's favorite character, which is simultaneously inevitable and cheap. He's simply a caricature of bloodthirstiness and absolute loyalty, so what's not to like? The Jackal is still around, which turns out about like how you would expect.
The Bellonas continue to make zero sense. They sent Julian to the Color Coded Hunger Games FULLY KNOWING that he was intended as hapless murder practice for a more ruthless student, and then proclaimed a nihilistic blood vendetta on that student? What did they expect? Would they have required the head of whichever random student happened to get Julian in the lottery?
But anyway, that has little to do with the story, honestly. It's just my pet peeve. Overall, the story is charged with violence, twists and turns, and drives you straight from the beginning to the end in a frenzy of intensity. The themes of vulnerability and loyalty are good. We get some actual work done in the plot to overthrow Color Coded Society. It's fun to watch Darrow shoot higher and higher, and really this book is much better than the first one. So, why am I rating them the same?
Mostly it's because I want to stab Darrow in the eye.
This guy. Honestly. It's so dramatic. He's so dramatic. His inner monologue, his speeches -- like PLEASE, I know we are dealing with these classical influences, but you are not some Greek hero. This is a dystopia. Please chill. And then there's the fact that he's so mopey and indecisive as well. Yes, we know your poor, poor teenage wife is dead. Yes, we know you're Forever Alone surrounded by a society of people with whom you Can Never Truly Belong.
One moment he's blinded by murderous rage, the next he's like but wait, we are all one race... the human race. He vacillates between acting like he is truly the only man alive who deserves rights and bouts of miserable self-reflection so often that sometimes it's hard to figure out where we're going. Please decide if you want to kill Golds or if you like them! Please decide if you want to overthrow them violently or not!
It just makes me want to pull my hair out. Honestly, this entire story would be so much less annoying if we weren't inside Darrow's head the entire time. Without Sevro's irreverent and humorous counterbalance, Darrow would be truly intolerable.
I don't know whether I have hope for this series or not. Not gonna lie, it makes me a little uncomfortable how so many people adore these books and I'm finding them such a mixed experience. It's probably just not the series for me, but also I kind of want to know whether the revolution succeeds or not.
That about sums it up.
This book was better than the first one, which is good because if it was worse I would have been mad. Instead of the Color Coded Hunger Games we have the Color Coded Civil War. This is superior because there is a point to it and it proceeds mostly logically from action to reaction, unlike the first book's long stretches of total inaction broken up by wild flailing.
There are also quite a few good moments. Highlights include Darrow's taking of the ship through popular uprising, his honesty with Ragnar and Ragnar's overall development, his visit home, Sevro's being in on things, the Ares Reveal which I completely did not expect, the lie detector competition, and did I mention Sevro's being in on things?
Lots of people are dead now, and lots more people are introduced. Sevro is mine and everyone else's favorite character, which is simultaneously inevitable and cheap. He's simply a caricature of bloodthirstiness and absolute loyalty, so what's not to like? The Jackal is still around, which turns out about like how you would expect.
The Bellonas continue to make zero sense. They sent Julian to the Color Coded Hunger Games FULLY KNOWING that he was intended as hapless murder practice for a more ruthless student, and then proclaimed a nihilistic blood vendetta on that student? What did they expect? Would they have required the head of whichever random student happened to get Julian in the lottery?
But anyway, that has little to do with the story, honestly. It's just my pet peeve. Overall, the story is charged with violence, twists and turns, and drives you straight from the beginning to the end in a frenzy of intensity. The themes of vulnerability and loyalty are good. We get some actual work done in the plot to overthrow Color Coded Society. It's fun to watch Darrow shoot higher and higher, and really this book is much better than the first one. So, why am I rating them the same?
Mostly it's because I want to stab Darrow in the eye.
This guy. Honestly. It's so dramatic. He's so dramatic. His inner monologue, his speeches -- like PLEASE, I know we are dealing with these classical influences, but you are not some Greek hero. This is a dystopia. Please chill. And then there's the fact that he's so mopey and indecisive as well. Yes, we know your poor, poor teenage wife is dead. Yes, we know you're Forever Alone surrounded by a society of people with whom you Can Never Truly Belong.
One moment he's blinded by murderous rage, the next he's like but wait, we are all one race... the human race. He vacillates between acting like he is truly the only man alive who deserves rights and bouts of miserable self-reflection so often that sometimes it's hard to figure out where we're going. Please decide if you want to kill Golds or if you like them! Please decide if you want to overthrow them violently or not!
It just makes me want to pull my hair out. Honestly, this entire story would be so much less annoying if we weren't inside Darrow's head the entire time. Without Sevro's irreverent and humorous counterbalance, Darrow would be truly intolerable.
I don't know whether I have hope for this series or not. Not gonna lie, it makes me a little uncomfortable how so many people adore these books and I'm finding them such a mixed experience. It's probably just not the series for me, but also I kind of want to know whether the revolution succeeds or not.