Book Review: Red Rising by Pierce Brown
Hello everyone,
Long time no see! How is everyone? Drinking lots of coffee? Voting away I hope? Life has been intense lately and I have fallen behind on the blog, I am ashamed of it. Originally, I planned to condense a few books I planned to do full reviews on into slightly longer mini book reviews. That plan went out the window when slightly longer turned into over 2000 words. So, change of plans, I am posting a full review for Red Rising by Pierce Brown and hoping for the best. I will put the remaining books on my list into a different document and write them. Once I see how long each review is I will decide what will happen to them. This is a terrible plan, but I can’t come up with a better one. I tried editing the review down but couldn’t decide what I wanted to cut out. I have a lot to say about the books I read as many of you know. Anyway, onwards!
Rating -10/10-
“I am the Reaper and death is my shadow.”
― Pierce Brown, Red Rising
This was a reread for me. I read the first book in the series once in 2018, and then never picked up any of the books after that. Why did I do that? I do not know. These books are great. Well, the first book is great. This is a sci-fi story, but I had no issues at all because it felt very grounded. I would say it was more futuristic than anything else. I’m sure we will go more into the space conquering aspect of it eventually in the series, but the first book starts on a much smaller scale. Our narrator Darrow is a great pair of eyes to experience the world through. He is not a revolutionary at heart, you can tell that much from the opening chapters. What drives him is personal. It’s always personal. I am now going into SPOILER LAND. Please stay out of SPOILER LAND.
The story starts when Darrow watches his wife sacrifice herself for what she believes in. She was the revolutionary out of the two of them. I got so angry during that part of the story. I have never been a fan of the female dying to motivate the man to change the world trope. I was not thrilled about it here. Eo keeps bringing up that she has a gift for Darrow and that she dreams that her children are born into a better world and I connect the dots, but Darrow does not. He says that he lives for her and she says he has to live for more. I agree with that. I also am happy Eo made her own choice. No one pushed her to make the choices she made. I’m sure she would have rather lived but when you are a slave you have the choices you have, and you do your best with them. There is no denying her death had an impact. Her song made me tear up and I was not yet attached to anyone in the story. The song itself has an impact. It speaks of bigger dreams and hopes for the future despite the odds. I did not appreciate multiple people in the story saying that she served her purpose. Neither does Darrow to his credit. I just wanted to smack them for that. People are with more than that. You’ll need to take a seat.
Well after Darrow loses his shit and will to live when his wife gets killed he gets smuggled out by his uncle and The Sons of Mars. We go through an interesting training sequence and medical sequence. I think this bit does the most to show us the world that Darrow lives in. Poor boy has to come to terms with the fact that his whole life was a lie and that the Reds (as his people are called) have been lied to for we don’t know how long. Probably hundreds of years judging by the amount of progress to technology and civilization. How sad is it that your whole life has been a lie and you have essentially been deceived into being a slave? Okay, I’m depressing myself.
The Sons of Mars have a brilliant plan. They will turn Darrow into a Gold and he will infiltrate the upper echelons of society and gather enough power to lead an army… okay I see some holes in this plan, but they are desperate. Darrow jumps on the plan because he wants vengeance. At this point, I foresee many issues ahead. Anyway, after the aforementioned training montage, Darrow is sent off to school for elite Golds and doesn’t know how to take much of the behaviors he witnessed. I mean fair, these are spoiled teenagers who also are very prone to solving their problems with violence. He brings up that some of the strategies employed by the school are meant to specifically throw people off balance. You know what, if someone pulls me out of my bed, puts a hood over my head, and strips me naked I will be off-balance too. I don’t care how horrible your life is. You don’t expect that. Well, it turns out that Gold’s strategy for pruning out the chaff is to put two naked teenagers in a room together and only let one come out alive. Sounds great. This will end well for everyone. Darrow kills someone’s twin. No issues will arise there.
The murder teenagers who make it out are divided up into teams and sent off into a simulated forest to fight it out amongst each other. This is where this book stops any sci-fi feeling it had. We are in a post-apocalyptic/ futuristic hunger games and shit is real. There is the reassurance that no one will die because the medics will intervene first, but people die. Some by accident, and some by straight-up murder. Each team aka house is supposed to compete with the other houses for flags and resources until one stands victorious. Cool. Cool. Cool. It’s the murder version of Capture the Flag.
Things go wrong immediately. Darrow ends up in house Mars (fitting considering he spent his whole life mining Mars, and that Mars is a god of war) and the house immediately divides up by leader. No one can agree about anything. I wanted to smack everyone. Don’t worry it gets worse. Darrow and Cassius try and while Darrow might have succeeded Cassius cramps his style. Cassius doesn’t think so, but I think so. The boy needs an ego check. You’d think having just lost his twin he would feel a little humbler but instead, he just is arrogant and unreasonable thus bringing Darrow down. There is a girl who wants to take power too, but I forgot her name because I’m horrible. I approve of her ambition, but she needs to be smarter. I like my characters to be smart if they want to play power games. I mean she tries.
Anyhow, everyone splits up into separate subgroups. Bad idea. Everyone else is cohesive in their houses and are doing much better than Darrow and his team. Sevro goes off by himself to get shit done, I love Sevro. He just does not care about what anyone thinks of him and will happily do things by himself if it works better for him. Let’s put it this way if Sevro skedaddles it means you are doing things wrong. Sadly, Darrow does not realize this yet. There is a long period of bad things happening, and then things go from bad to worse despite the constant reminders from the proctors of the test that this is just school. Darrow realizes that the tyrannical psychopath Titus is a Red in disguise and has a mental breakdown. Instead of doing the right thing, he gives Cassius his revenge, because Cassius is convinced Titus killed his twin when that is not the case at all. That would be Darrow who is so terrified Cassius will find out the truth that he makes all the mistakes. Sevro and Darrow are now onto each other about who they killed and while Darrow is impressed Sevro is worried about how things will eventually explode. I’m with you Sevro!
Well, soon enough things do explode. The Jackal (btw I kind of want to be known by a cool nickname now. Darrow is the Reaper, The Jackal is, umm, The Jackal, Sevro is Goblin, and Virginia is Mustang. What is my nickname? Someone give me one.) sends Cassius a video of Darrow murdering his twin, you know he had no choice, but murder is murder, and Cassius loses his shit per usual. The Proctors are playing favorites now. So, Cassius decides that the best thing to do is to take Darrow out somewhere in the middle of the night and stab him and leave him for dead. Good plan. Well after that traumatic attempt on his life Darrow gets rescued by Mustang and she is the best thing that ever happened to him. Well her and Sevro because we all need a friend like Sevro who will happily kill an alpha of a wolf pack to gain control of the other wolves and parade around in the skin of his conquest. I am still looking for one of these friends.
Mustang and Darrow bond in a cave while she nurses him back to health. Then she gets sick and he nurses her back to health. Mutual lifesaving is a good way to develop trust. Mustang brings up that she is worried about the Jackal. Darrow also has a visit from the Proctor of house Mars, who turns out to be Sevro’s father, and who reveals that The Jackal is meant to win and that he is the son of the ArchGavernor aka the man who sentenced o to death. Well, this is personal now on multiple levels. For one, Darrow is as competitive as it gets. Knowing that the Jackal is meant to win only pisses him off and makes him more determined to win and show them all. Then there is the fact that if he defeats the Jackal he will humiliate the Governor and that’s all he wants really. This is not a bad plan because it does not reveal your long game and instead can be taken as a pursuit of personal ambition.
Darrow comes up with a new plan. He will gather an army and take down anyone he has to take down to win the game and show all of Gold Society, or at least the section of it available to him right now, that he will not be underestimated, nor will he be played with. Mustang is so on board because that girl does not like to lose either. We find out later that she too has some bones to grind and this is her shot. As Hamilton said in the musical “I am not throwing away my shot” and Mustang and Darrow subscribe to his philosophy. They start gathering people by freeing them from slavery to other houses and bonding together as a team. Very cute. I’m just glad that Darrow learned from Mustang that it is better to be liked and respected vs feared when in a leadership role. Sevro is back and he is my favorite. They almost catch the Jackal, but he escapes with help and Darrow does not take this well. He also doesn’t take well the news that Mustang has been kidnapped by the Proctors and taken up to their little palace in the sky. He responds by stabbing the messenger in the eye. I can’t’ say I object.
Darrow storms Olympus and either kills or captures all the Praetors. He sends Mustang off to capture the Jackal, and immediately after we find out that she is the Jackal’s twin sister. Scandal! Scandal! Scandal! And they just had a nice romantic kiss too! Darrow is convinced he will get double-crossed because he has trust issues, but Mustang comes back with the army and her psychopath twin in chains, and hands over the victory banner because she is not a snake and believes she and Darrow are a team. Which they are. I am just worried about how we will make this all work with the Red Rebellion presumably being the end goal for Darrow.
We end the book with a party. I love parties. I wish there was some more food shown because food makes everything better. Any pastries? Instead, Darrow gets offered a position under the ArchGavernor. Well, he accepts because strategically it’s the best thing to do if he wants to be in a position of power, but he is worried and so am I. The boy is collecting problems. We got Cassius and his promise to kill Darrow the next time they meet, we have the Jackal who is creepy AF and probably will want revenge, and we have Darrow and his temper in the house of his archenemy. I see no problems ahead.
This book was such a fun ride, filled with violence of course but still fun. I like all the characters, Sevro is my favorite in case you couldn’t tell. I liked the world and feel there is so much space for world building still left. I want to know more. Darrow has a lot of work to do and is gathering enemies left and right. I am ready for this. Now to make sure I pick up the next book.
I can’t believe it’s already the end of October. I honestly do not know where the time went. It feels like we just started the month. I will do better about posting next month (I say now with hope in my soul), I am also planning to join in on NaNoWriMo. I have done no preparation whatsoever. it will be great. I also have finals in November. Everything is fine. I will hopefully be back on Monday so keep your fingers crossed for me.
Anna
