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.
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
SO MUCH THIS!!!! I agree with everything lmao, couldn’t stand Darrow the Gary Stu & the writing was so wordy omg. I DNFed at 60% at the time, I think. Great review!
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Thanks😊 !, I’m so glad to know you’ve felt the same, it’s always hard to write an unpopular opinion about a book everyone love, but being honest isn’t for me 😕
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Looks like this book needed some major editing. I’ve seen it available for really low prices on a lot of platforms and I wonder if it was self published… and therefore missed out on that agent and editor revision time…
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I didn’t enjoy this one either… None of the characters felt genuine, they are all so egosentric and “better than everyone” and there are too many weird words and info dumping happened!
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I felt the same, I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels that way! I really wanted to love it like everyone else but I just think it’s not the book for me
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I’m sorry this book didn’t work out for you! I haven’t read it yet but I’m hoping to binge the whole series this year. I’ll try to lower my expectations when I get to it. Great Review though! 🙂
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Thanks💕 I really hope you enjoy it once you read it 😊😊
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I totally agree with everything you said about Darrow! The chapter where Darrow was transformed into a Gold wasn’t very believable and I didn’t buy it. And it didn’t help that Darrow always thinks he’s better than everyone else 😦
Great review! I’m so glad to know that I’m not the only one who’s not a fan of Red Rising 🙂
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Thanks😊! I’m glad to know that I’m not the only one either! It’s really hard to write an unpopular review of a book everyone love so much, but I have to be honest and I really didn’t like it 😕
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You’re welcome! I totally get it, I feel the same way when I write negative reviews. Especially when the book was recommended to me and the person really loved it 😦
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[…] everywhere lol. So I would really say that it is not the book for me I’ll leave you my review HERE in case you want to know more about my thoughts about […]
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I’ve seen this around heaps and was considering reading it, purely to see what the hype was about, bu your review has made me think… And if it’s done that you’re doing something right!
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I really thought I’ll love it, but it wasn’t like that and it’s a shame because it’s such a well loved book, you know? I hope that if you still decide to read it someday you can enjoy it more than me 😊
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I didn’t quite like the 1st book either but as I already owned the trilogy, I decided to give the 2nd book a try and I actually enjoyed from then onwards!
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That’s great!I’m so glad you enjoyed it more now 😊😊
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[…] Red Rising (Red Rising Saga #1) by Pierce Brown (2/5 Stars) REVIEW HERE […]
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[…] this round, we have Red Rising (Red Rising Saga #1) by Pierce Brown, on the one hand, and Siege and Storm (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy #2) by Leigh Bardugo on the […]
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