Adrian Curtin's Reviews > Golden Son

The major flaw of the previous book was the lack of any investment in the protagonist on the part of the reader. Things simply happen and you accept them, only to be scurried off to the next engagement with little and listless purpose. This book is a huge improvement on the first novel in the series.
Golden Sun skips past the need for world building and focuses rather on building the tension and politics between the characters. If "Red Rising" was an unassembled piece of Ikea furniture that promised to be beautiful and make sense, "Golden Sun" is that moment where it is constructed and actually becomes functional.
While there is still not much depth to the main character, Brown weaves the tense relationships between all the other characters in an exciting way. As a a result the book is much more dramatic, surprises are more surprising, the scale is epic but not falsely so, and while you may not still feel for Darrow, at least you are rooting for his team.
So if you're up for a much more intense interstellar experience, pick up this novel.