Reviews with content warning for Trafficking - Red Rising

This book just felt like a Hunger Games Clone to me. I think it was to set up the financial success for the series to get published, but it felt uninspired.

Content Warnings

goodwillcunting's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Red Rising is a book about power, and about hope, and about all that matters to being human once everything else is made perfect. The cast is messy and complicated in a way that makes you forget who you’re rooting for. The worldbuilding is engaging, but still tethered in reality enough that it comes easily to the reader. The story is full of plot twists, unlikely alliances, and highly detailed action, and I would recommend most to read it. 0.25 stars were taken off for pacing and the other 0.25 for excessive use of the word “piss.”

Content Warnings

minimoose0's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Content Warnings

abitterknitter's review against another edition

Go to review page

I just could not care enough about the characters to keep going. It was all just violence.

Content Warnings

richardiporter's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Upgraded review in light of reading the sequel golden son
Imagine a major theme of revolution of miners on mars.
A rigid caste system.
Also heavy influence of the spartan agoge sci fi military academy tropes.
And it’s good. So good.

Content Warnings

lillelow's review against another edition

Go to review page

DNF 40%.

The book begins the worst possible way with drunk father figures and community leaders laughing about raping the protagonist’s wife - and no one raises an eyebrow. Misogyny, machoism, masochism, prostitution as a means of female survival and male pleasure, a world in which all women are beautiful, marry when they’re 14 and work with silk while all the manly men work in the mines… This is a sci-fi novel, a world of make believe. You can write about ANYTHING. Create ANY future. Yet this is what we get. I’m SO F* TIRED of reading about this bullshit.

I wanted to put the book down then and there, but decided to give it a go because of all the good reviews.

I shouldn’t have bothered. It doesn’t get better.

The premiss is interesting, but the execution and the character portrayal is horrible.

I didn’t like the protagonist at all. Clever, brave, strong, humble, hardworking, loving… All the right things! At least, that’s what I’m told. Honestly, all I see is a self absorbed insular teenager with no weakness who excels at everything he does for no reason other than he’s the chosen one. He doesn’t have to be likeable, but believable is quite important, and this book does none of it.

The supposedly romantic interactions between the protagonist and his wife are probably supposed to be charming and sweet but only feel stiff, cliche and childish and evoke no emotions at all. But hey, at least she is incredibly beautiful and we’re told everyone loves her… I guess that was enough for the author.

I didn’t like any of the other characters either. Even the ones who are described in good light are horrible, not to mention the way they express themselves. I’m not prude. Explicit language and swearing is fine. But most of the writing, dialogue, slurs and expletives in this book are just disturbing and annoying. You cannot make me believe people talk like this for real. Is it supposed to be cool?? I couldn’t stand it, I hated almost everyone and the flat writing did nothing to help.

At 40% through, I couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t care about the story or the characters and was mostly annoyed at it all. Ender’s Game’s the perfect chosen one meets the segregation and killing of The Hunger Games or Gladiator (only it’s terrible) in a violent color-coded elite school on Mars with some sprinkles… no, make that a heavy rain…. of machoism and sexism.

No thank you.
★★-

Content Warnings

dawn_marie's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

Sooooooo after half a dozen attempts and lots of prodding by friends, I finally managed to finish Red Rising by Pierce Brown and I really dislike it. The novel is marketed as a “dystopian science fiction,” I find that neither is correct. Other than being set on Mars and having some fancy tech, there is nothing “science fiction” about the novel. I suppose one could consider the novel dystopian if they really stretched the definition.

The idea of the novel is interesting: in a future where humans expanded their reach into the solar system, Mars – being rich in a mineral/gas necessary for terraforming – has becoming a mining colony. Society is structed in a color-coded caste system where Reds are the lowest, performing the most dangerous jobs (specifically the mining), and Golds are the pampered ruling class. After a tragic event and witnessing the indifference of the Golds, a Red is recruited to become a spy amongst the Gold ranks to challenge the status quo, and usher in change. While that sounded intriguing, that’s not what we go. Instead, Red Rising is a Hunger Games/Battle Royale clone, with a Gary Stu protagonist, repetitive info dumps, and painfully bad writing.

The story is narrated by Darrow, a thoroughly unlikeable character who manages to easily overcome every hardship/hurdle he faces. Of course Darrow is the youngest and bestest ~~drill operato~~r helldiver that ever was, of course he is best loved amongst the Reds, of course he married the most beautiful girl in the colony, of course he not only proceeds to mine a “dangerous” pocket when everyone tells him not to, but manages to mine the biggest ore find in history, and of course he’s the first one in the family who mined enough ore to win the laurel. After his wife dies, Darrow is recruited by the Sons of Ares to infiltrate the Golds, where – after his makeover montage – he of course manages to miss only one question out 100s on the entrance exam, of course he charms everyone around him, of course he figures out some of the puzzles, traps, and tricks in the arena before anyone else, of course, although he only had a few weeks training, he manages to defeat people who have been training with weapons their entire life, and of course he manages to win everything. Nothing was ever hard for Darrow; everything came easily to him and what little conflict/difficulty did arise was quickly resolved and fell Darrow’s favor.

The rest of the cast were caricatures, serving little purpose other than to demonstrate how “awesome” Darrow is; that he’s “not like other guys”. The few characters that did get significant page time were deplorable, not one of them were likeable, or at a minimum, rootable – I wanted them all to fail, and fail miserably. The author’s portrayal of females was especially problematic, with the two main named female characters (Eo and Mustang) being quickly fridged*, and the others being reduced to prizes, arm candy, victim, or something to toy with.

For a novel that is filled with battle and fight sequences, it moves at a glacially slow pace. I blame that on the author’s choice to use first person narrative, where Darrow constantl makes tangential “philosophical” musing or dumps a ton of information. There was entirely too much tell and not enough show and writing that tried to be clever but came off pretentious (this happened every time Darrow mused about the political structure or people’s motivations). While this can work, it didn’t here mainly due to the author’s writing style, which vacillated between clumsy and clunky, with some cringe-worthy thrown in for good measure.

I don’t know who the intended audience is, but the book is feels extremely YA and should come with a trigger/content warning (regardless of the audience) as it is filled with causal violence, brutality, murder, maiming, torture, physical and sexual assault, rape, cannibalism, homophobia and misogyny slavery, and human trafficking.

I am told that that series gets better, and Pierce Brown’s writing improves with each installment. I did read the first few chapters of Golden Son and did not see any improvement in writing or storytelling. Unless the author magically/spiritually manages to channel Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, and William Faulkner, I don’t see myself reading future works.

*Fridiging – a plot device in which female characters face disproportionate harm (death, maiming, assault, rape, kidnaping) to motivate male characters.

Content Warnings

espy0nage's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark inspiring sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

More...