Red Rising (Red Rising Saga, #1) in Hype or Like Friday

May 15, 2024 Danielle (Life of a Literary Nerd) rated it it was ok

Shelves: science-fiction, audiobook

This was fine but I didn't really care about the characters so I was fighting boredom the whole time. This is a classic rebellion story - someone in the lower class eyes are opened to their exploitation so they infiltrate the higher class to take it down from within. There's plenty of action, but I wanted some more politics and worldbuilding, which I'm sure is present in upcoming books in the series. There was a few distinct characters, but I really just didn't care about them - they kinda just ...more

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Jan 26, 2014 Michael rated it liked it

Shelves: read-in-2014, science-fiction, kindle, arc, tower-team-challenge-b, pbrc-tower-challenge

I'll have to admit I was about ready to give up on Red Rising after wading through the first hundred or so pages of the novel, but solid on-line buzz and a glowing review from Entertainment Weekly made me determined to muddle on and see if I could find out what all the buzz was about.

And now that I've finished the book (the first in a trilogy of novels), I can sort of see what all the buzz was about. In many ways, Pierce Brown's debut novel feels like it's taken a lot of ingredients from other p I'll have to admit I was about ready to give up on Red Rising after wading through the first hundred or so pages of the novel, but solid on-line buzz and a glowing review from Entertainment Weekly made me determined to muddle on and see if I could find out what all the buzz was about.

And now that I've finished the book (the first in a trilogy of novels), I can sort of see what all the buzz was about. In many ways, Pierce Brown's debut novel feels like it's taken a lot of ingredients from other popular novels -- dystopian future, a hero who must reinvent himself and embrace his destiny, lost love, a winner take all, no-holds barred contest - and blended them all together like a stew. And while all the ingredients are good, I still don't feel like everything blended together well enough to leave me feeling satisfied when I got to the bottom of the bowl.

Darrow is the lowest of the low in the future dystopian caste system on Mars. He's a miner who endures day after day of back breaking labor in an attempt to get ahead a bit. His lifespan is expected to be short, but Darrow takes comfort in the love of his wife, Eo. But when Eo speaks out against the ruling class on Mars, her final act before being hung is one of defiance. Darrow is devastated (her death is made even more brutal by the fact that due to Mars' lower gravity, he has to pull on her legs to complete her sentence and allow her to die without further suffering) and vows to find a way to get back at those who took the light of his life from him.

This leads to his own trip to the gallows and his apparent death. But instead of dying, he's taken and turned into an upper crust elite with the goal of leading a rebellion from the highest levels and overthrowing the powers above him and getting his revenge on those who took Eo from him. Along the way, Darrow learns that much of that Mars he knew is built lies and deception, designed to keep the lower classes down and give them just enough hope to keep toiling while the upper castes reap the benefits.

What Darrow endures to become one of the higher castes is interesting, but there were times reading this first installment I wished Brown would spend a bit less time on the world-building and a bit more time developing his characters and moving the plotline forward. At times, Darrow is difficult to like, making some portions of the book less interesting to read than others.

And yet, this book is garnering a lot of glowing reviews from the on-line community, I kept reminding myself. And there are a few twists in the novel's last third as well as a pick-up in the intensity of developments that I could almost see what everyone else seems to love about this book.

It's enough to have me interested in a second installment and curious to see what happens next. But it's not enough for to me really rave about this book and feel completely satisfied with it overall. It feels like it's a few ingredients short of a complete meal. ...more

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Mar 04, 2016 Kirsty rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: library-copy, reviewed

So many people have been hyping about this book so it was definitely one I knew I wanted to read sometime soon, thankfully my library got me it pretty quickly though they don’t have any of the rest of the trilogy god damn. Also Pierce Brown is fucking hot so yeah.

Red Rising follows Darrow after he loses his wife and decides to break the law so that he is killed. But someone rescues him and he discovers that the government has been lying to them the whole time and Darrow’s people aren’t mining to ...more

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Aug 24, 2014 Lynn Williams rated it it was amazing

http://lynnsbooks.wordpress.com/2014/...
Just finished reading Red rising by Pierce Brown – I confess that I went into this with maybe slightly negative feelings. I was feeling a little bit meh about another futuristic dystopian novel. Lets face it Collins was to dystopia what Meyers was to Vampires and frankly it became a little bit tedious to say the least. So, let’s just assume I was going to be a little bit of a tougher nut to crack on this novel than I sometimes feel when I start reading. Th http://lynnsbooks.wordpress.com/2014/...
Just finished reading Red rising by Pierce Brown – I confess that I went into this with maybe slightly negative feelings. I was feeling a little bit meh about another futuristic dystopian novel. Lets face it Collins was to dystopia what Meyers was to Vampires and frankly it became a little bit tedious to say the least. So, let’s just assume I was going to be a little bit of a tougher nut to crack on this novel than I sometimes feel when I start reading. This is the first thing that makes it so much more surprising that I totally enjoyed this book. Not only did Brown win me over but he gripped me and had the pages turning so fast that you could be forgiven for thinking I was Johnny 5 – need input!

Okay, the novel gets off to a fairly quick start. We’re introduced in short measure to the mining community and I’m talking about the mining community on Mars! These people work bloody hard – they have to make a quota in order to eat. The idea of luxuries is ridiculous beyond measure. These people have nothing – however, what they do have is love and passion in abundance. In that respect they are rich and their families bathe in the wealth of love that they all hold for each other. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of harsh competition between the different families, which is understandable given the benefits, but they all still have a fairly tight knit community. Now, all that, came across in fairly short measure. Brown has a wonderful eloquence with words that imparts knowledge without impeding the story. What happens next is eye opening for you the reader and for Darrow who is the main protagonist. Yes, we’ve both been taken for a ride here – by someone. There is some pretty deep shit going on here! And, I don’t want to give it away – however, this is a review so I have to write something and I’m going to move the story on without telling you exactly why. Suffice to say that Darrow finds himself in a situation where he is part of a team, warring against other teams for the prize of becoming the best. This is not a fight to the death – this is a game of survival and tactics, a game of politics and making friends where you least suspected. A game where you can rise to the very top.

So, onto a more critical analysis. The setting. Easy to visualise. Nothing too over the top in the way of future sophisticated scenery just a glimpse, not enough to date the story too quickly. Basically the people on earth have discovered ways of colonising other planets. They need a certain gas (found beneath the exterior of Mars – hence the miners) in order to do so.

The characters – we have a brief glimpse at the beginning of the miners and they really do have the pretty fuzzy end of the lollypop, which makes the reveal so much worse. Obviously the main character is Darrow – and he’s a dilemma. He starts off the story with a fire in his belly. He is on a mission which is not necessarily the one he wants but it’s the only chance he has. Having read the book I’m not sure about Darrow I don’t dislike him, in fact the opposite, however I think that Brown is clearly trying to get across how a person is influenced by their environment. Darrow is in a competition and he wants to win. Of course he wants to win for a purpose and yet reading the story does he also start to become a tiny little bit like the people he most hates – anyway, I move into other realms. There are plenty of characters, slimy two timers, hench-can’t-be-stopped-don’t-mess-with-me-mothers and straight-up-crazy-arsed-in-a good-way-runs-with-wolves-and-scares-the-shit-out-of-everyone-way types. Basically there are good guys and bad guys on every team, in fact there are right and wrong people in every strata – and that’s the way it is and it starts to come out as the story goes along.

Anyway, the whole dystopia boils down to the fact that society has become segregated. People are born and live into a colour that defines them for the rest of their lives. Reds are miners, Golds are the top echelon of society and then there are a whole variety of colours in-between. Looked at in that way and in the way that the book is written it seems almost an exaggerated take on the class system. There are more stratas than upper, middle and lower class but at the end of the day it boils down to the uppers and lowers which are basically the ones where the disparity are most likely to show issues in any society. As an example, you have people of the upper stratas poncing around on their hover boots chasing young girls to frolic away the afternoon whilst others of the lower factions are struggling to eat and stay alive.

What makes this book so readable and so intense is the competition that Darrow becomes a part of. It’s really tough. I don’t know whether this is YA, but I personally thought it was due to the age of the main protagonist and yet this gets down right dirty and ugly. This isn’t a simple game of survival – it gets much more tough than that. It’s a gritty read and also reads almost like a straight up fantasy given the setting which during the games is almost mediaeval.

Anyway, this is a very cryptic review because I don’t really want to give too much away. I enjoyed this. I thought the writer’s style was addictive. I found the whole competition intriguing and I’m perfectly sure that I’ve missed a lot of nuances that I’m sure everybody else will pick up on. So read it and tell me what I missed.

A book which I have no hesitation in recommending. ...more

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Jan 13, 2014 Jean ~ Kindle Queen marked it as abandoned

Ugh! I only made it to page 60 (about 15%) by forcing myself, and then I realized I had to stop. Blech. I think it was the writing style that really annoyed me (short, choppy sentences with occasional analogies that were totally nonsensical). That combined with the frequent (undefined) slang terminology and flat characters put me off. Lots and lots of telling and no showing. Aaargh! I'm actually angry that I spent time reading this, which is way more passion than Darrow displayed in the chapters ...more

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Nov 16, 2015 Debby (Alwaysbooking) rated it it was amazing

Why oh why did I wait so long to read this book!!I kept putting it off for some reason. I'm so glad I did read it though. What a wonderful world Pierce Brown created. It took a couple chapters to get the language down and the world imagined in my mind. After you get that it just turns into a marathon of what comes next??

This world or worlds has been set up on a color system. Reds at the bottom and Golds on top. There are other colors in between and you do learn quite a bit about them in this fir ...more

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