Book Review: Red Rising by Pierce Brown

Title: Red Rising (Red Rising Saga #1)

By: Pierce Brown

Published: January 28th 2014

By: Del Rey (Random House)

Genre: Fantasy-YA-Dystopia-Sci/Fi

“I live for the dream that my children will be born free,” she says. “That they will be what they like. That they will own the land their father gave them.”

“I live for you,” I say sadly.

Eo kisses my cheek. “Then you must live for more.”

Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of Mars livable for future generations.

Yet he spends his life willingly, knowing that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better world for his children.

But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity already reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and sprawling parks spread across the planet. Darrow—and Reds like him—are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class.

Inspired by a longing for justice, and driven by the memory of lost love, Darrow sacrifices everything to infiltrate the legendary Institute, a proving ground for the dominant Gold caste, where the next generation of humanity’s overlords struggle for power. He will be forced to compete for his life and the very future of civilization against the best and most brutal of Society’s ruling class. There, he will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies… even if it means he has to become one of them to do so. 

Goodreads

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I really wanted to love this book, and despite being Sci-Fi, (which is a genre that always gives me problems) I wanted to give it a try for its main idea, which seemed super unique, but sadly I didn’t like it at all, and I’ll let you know next of some the main points for which I haven’t enjoyed this book. I know that this saga has alot of fans so I want to remind you that, as always, my thoughts are just mine and don’t pretend to be offensive at all

Red Rising follows the story of Darrow, he’s a red, which is the lowest caste of this new futuristic society coded by colors. He, as the other reds, work very hard under the surface of Mars, to make this a habitable place for future generations. But Darrow and his people have been betrayed, since he discovers that humanity has already reached the surface for generations and reds like him are no more than slaves. Because of this Darrow decides to infiltrate an institute, where the next generations of the Gold caste fight for power. There he’ll pass for one of them to shoot down his enemies and do justice for his people 

It sounds great, right? Its synopsis was what most caught me, no doubts. Sadly I found myself getting bored most of the book. At first I thought everything was very interesting, and although knowing new places, new characters and many many new words always overwhelms me a little, I was hooked by the plot so I wanted to know what would happen next. And although the plot sounds promising, I think the book itself deviates a lot from the original idea. I think everything is transformed into a kind of Hunger Games meets Harry Potter but with very strange and meangless words lol. This may sound good, but in reality there are many scenes that go from being similar to exactly the same, and I couldn’t believe that nobody noticed that kind of thing before publishing the book.

On the other hand, I see Darrow being obviously much better than the others, because let me tell you that Darrow is the most perfect guy in the world, he’s stronger than others, inexplicably beautiful and is the best in absolutely everything he does, even when he’s involved in challenges with the Golds (who are superior in intelligence and in other abilities) he wins without any effort. I found the whole thing so unreal, and I could have understood if Darrow’s transformation would have been more convincing, but it wasn’t, he’s subdued to the strangest experiments of which I just understood the half of them. The time periods are very confused so I don’t even know how long he was preparing himself to become a Gold. But whatever they did was excellent because they turned him into a superior being in every way. It’s really too much for me.

I should have cleared it up before I started saying all this, but I can’t stand Darrow, I don’t understand his way of being or thinking and he confuses me a lot. When you start the book and even in its synopsis you can say that Darrow is a sensitive and empathetic guy who will do anything to avenge his people, but I found a super egocentric character who spends alot of time saying that he’s better than everyone in everything, also acts on many occasions as a very cold person almost without emotions, and I understand that he have to maintain a position in a world that is not his, but even in his own thoughts when he’s not trying to impress anyone sounds as a complete idiot. Honestly it’s very difficult to feel connection with a character like him.

In fact, I couldn’t connect with any character, I would say that I thinkEo was a good character but her participation is very short so I couldn’t connect or know her better.

I think the society it’s very interesting, I like the idea of the colors division and all that, even though I don’t feel that it’s well explained, nobody takes the time to explain why each color should do what it should do or who said that it had to be like that. It’s a bit weird, even though, I can stand it, it’s not the worst of the book

The writing this book has is not for me, I couldn’t explain to you how difficult it has been for me to read all this, maybe this is one of the main things for which I haven’t enjoyed the book. It’s really a heavy reading and sometimes boring as well, it has many strange words that I don’t know why they’re there, I mean, I don’t want to sound like a bitch or anything but sometimes I think that less is more, you know? Pierce Brown may be the best writer on earth, but if he puts an endless pile of invented words without any kind of explanation, just because he can, then it will be much harder to focus on what is important, which is the main plot, right?. In fact there were many moments where I thought of DNF it, but I guess I had hopes and also had read too much to give it up, on the other hand I wanted to see if something else happened, it wasn’t, but at least now I can say that I’m not interested in continuing with this saga at all

I feel so bad because I know that many of you love this book, but well, somtimes I have unpopular opinions. Well, I’ll stay positive for my next reading. At least I’ve read it once and for all, and now at least I have an opinion about it

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Rating

2/5 Stars

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