Tuesday 29 December 2015

Book review: Red Rising by Pierce Brown

Book: Red Rising
Author: Pierce Brown
Series: Red Rising, #1
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Blurb:

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 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 am a Red Helldiver of Lykos. I am Gold Primus of House Mars. And I am going to my last battle in this bloodydamn valley. After that the real war begins."

Well, well, well... That was gorydamn intense, to say in the least.

Going into this story, I was not certain what the plot was going to be like, because I hadn't read that many reviews and I wanted to be surprised by the story, to tell you the truth.

And surprised I was.

In reviews I've seen others describing Red Rising as Ender's Gamemeets the The Hunger Games and even though I haven't read the first (or haven't even gotten a clue) and am familiar with the second, I have to point out that only certain minor things reminded me of the book. Obviously certain situations regarding the players, but the need for a revolution in regimes that practically enslave nations is the core for every dystopian novel and not just those two books above. Because Red Rising can be considered a dystopian novel that focuses on the rather distand future.

People now live in other planets of our solar system after many wars on good ol' Earth have divided the population and basically everyone hates everyone. Propaganda is at its fullest and in a planet not so far away lives Darrow, one of those people who are called Red and their goal is to ready the planet for the future inhabitants. Or is it? We, along with Darrow, with the progression of the book, realise what is really happening and who are responsible for the current situation. And we crave vengeance.

Brown has constructed this society that at first seems rather complex with the multitude of names and subjects and it is at that point that I may have lost the plot for a little bit. Don't get me wrong, I've been circling that reading slump for weeks before that, but once we were introduced to society's layers, I was a little lost resulting in me putting the book down for some time.

But fear not, my trusted minions, I picked it back up.

The hierarchy in this story was a little bit difficult for me to remember, to be honest. I don't think I still understand who is at the very topmost on the food chain, but I can tell you Reds are at the bottom. I liked how everyone had to have a purpose in this life, with no actual interaction and interference between Colours, but I could do with a diagram at the beginning or the ending of the book to come to terms with how everything functions. That is the reason I'm taking a half star out of final rating, everything was good and dandy, but I want to understand how it works.

Coming back to Darrow, we follow his story when, after the death of his wife, he is selected by an organisation (shall I say) for a chance to start a rebellion against the society's highest, the Golds. I was happy with the fact that Darrow wasn't the first attempt and him being a special snowflake he surpasses every obstacle and is perfectly perfect. No, Darrow might have been chosen earlier than he thought he was, but he was the nth attempt against the "bad guys". And this time they got some results.

I don't want to get into the Institure, because I want to leave that part to the unsuspecting readers, but I wish to point out that from that point onwards my interests were really piqued. And during that time, we come across some very interesting characters that are going to leave an impact on you just as they did on me. Sevro, Mustang, Pax, Cassius, The Jackal, even Nyla are characters that made me root for them, hate them, want to disembowel them or just plain adore them.

There are many different kinds of characters that we get to meet. Stupid, brilliant, cunny, ruthless, we all get to meet them and we get to meet some serious strong female characters. In a world where you might think that men take the reins, women are many times even stronger and more cruel than them. Eo (lovely Eo that I missed very much), Mustang, Harmony, Antonia etc, characters that shined through their attitudes and actions.

To put it plainly, there are badass characters here.

And Darrow. Darrow is a difficult character for me to understand completely, because sometimes I lost him. I like him as a character a lot, but there were times that I might not have understood him and his actions. And I like that he can surprise me so. We shall see what happens in the next book and if he will live up to the image I have of him in my head right now.
"...I will rise. I will attend the Academy. I will learn to lead fleets. I will win. I will sharpen myself into a sword. I will give my soul. I will dive to hell in hopes of one day rising to freedom. I will sacrifice. And I will grow my legend and spread it amongst the peoples of all the worlds until I am fit to lead the armies that will break the chains of bondage, because I am not simple an agent of the Sons of Ares. I am not simply a tactic or a device in Ares's schemes. I am the hope of my people. Of all the people in bondage."

love that quote.

Last but not least, I want to talk about the writing. I am aware that this is Brown's debut novel, so obviously this is the first time we come across his writing. I believe that it fitted the story, but after a while those short sentences lost a little bit of their shine and that mostly happened on the fighting sequences. I love reading fighting sequences like nothing else and there are more than a few in Red Rising that I felt lost their magic because the description just wasn't enough. I wanted more details that I didn't have an apart from the fights those short sentences irked me a bit on plain descriptions. 

I know I am going to get used to everything by the second book, but so far it was just at the forefront of my mind.

I realise that this turned out in a really big rant, that coming to read it again, I'll realise that I don't make sense, so I'll leave you with just a few words.

Definitely try this book. It might pleasantly surprise you.

Rating for Red Rising:

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