Reviews tagging 'Gaslighting'

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

15 reviews

kermittothebit's review against another edition

I'm reading others' reviews and it's as if we were reading different novels. One star.

I had the overwhelming feeling that I was reading poorly-done fanfiction, even though I wasn't focused on its similarities with Hunger Games. The writing is atrocious. The main character is one-dimensional, arrogant, contradictory, and seemingly stupid. The plot is so lacking that it felt like I was missing entire portions of writing; that I was just jumping between someone's ideas for a plot without any of the fleshing-out that makes characters interesting, does world-building, or gets you invested in any character. The most complicated character was his uncle, and even that was confusing.
 
The world is poorly done: With barely any world-building done, you're asked to accept that 

  a society that achieved widespread genetic engineering (capable of altering iris coloring and the NUMBER OF FINGERS ON HUMAN HANDS??? without any side-effects?) has not figured out how to use machinery to do tasks like mining, rather than using slavery. I only got 71 pages in, so hopefully there's some "it happened before and everyone was killed off, society restarted" explanation, but...the entire mining society is so dumb that they never explored the (apparently body-sized) ventilation system that dumps directly out into a park? Or a step back, they asked how their atmosphere inside Mars was being generated and maintained (i.e. not leaking out to the surface or being affected in any way by their expansive mining) without any visible machinery to do so? (How would they not know there were vents???) They never asked why they have televisions in the main commons but don't have any other engineering feats?

Also, and maybe this one is on me, but I just didn't love the child labor or marriage-at-puberty points. Maybe they're there to make life seem extra horrible, but it's incredibly problematic that it's mentioned (unjust in itself) but then never challenged (the main character just loves his child wife, and there's no mention of WHY it's a problem, like a lack of maturity or choice or discomfort with sex or anything). An author would be crucified if they made slavery an inherent part of their world but then NEVER mentioned anything that indicated that slavery is in any way problematic.

The main character is poorly done: (And that's on me, I think I should have judged the book by the four-square-inch gloss-covered picture of the leather-clad author doing his #Smolder on the UPPER left corner of the back cover. And if you think I'm being too harsh, I'd like to note that the words Pierce and Brown were indeed used within the first 30 pages)

He has NO REACTION to seeing the garden for the first time. He is entirely motivated for his love of his wife...who is described only as beautiful (way. too. many. times.) and rebellious...until after her death, when someone immediately shits on her for not actually being rebellious or strong ENOUGH. She's smart enough to find a vent that no one else has even thought to look for (or to explore after her entire workshop becomes aware of it???) but the world-saving is left to her (apparently also incredibly handsome, eye-roll) child husband, because he's....a Hell-diver? Is that supposed to mean Brave? Because it looked a whole lot like Stupid when he miscalculated his jump, burned his hand, and almost lost his foot out of a burning desire to buy into the social-manipulation of the productivity competition.

I have more complaints but this is starting to feel like playing with my food.

I literally had more fun and used more of my brain writing this review than reading this book. Life is too short and my shelves are too packed to try this one again. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Slavery, Police brutality, Fire/Fire injury, and Classism

n0elle's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Police brutality, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

ka_ke's review against another edition

I got bored. The book is predictably dystopian. 

I’m all for rallying the people against the oppressors, I think these stories are truly important, however there has to be a way to get the point across in less pages or with faster pacing. 

Also… you can tell a hetero-cis-male wrote the series.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Gore, Misogyny, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Murder, Gaslighting, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Emotional abuse, Rape, Sexual content, Medical content, Medical trauma, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, and Alcohol

mollysbooklist's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? No

3.0

It felt like an American author trying really hard to write in various British accents and Irish accents. I found it distracting and made the plot more convoluted than necessary. 

The audiobook narration was okay. I think I would’ve enjoyed this more if it had been a physical/e-book vs. the audiobook. I think the narration highlighted the problems of the writing. 

*Accents haven’t previously been an issue for me so it was surprising how distracting it was with this book. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Death, Gore, Misogyny, Slavery, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, and Classism

Moderate: Fatphobia, Sexual assault, and Torture

Minor: Cannibalism

readsbyrach's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, and War

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cannibalism, and Gaslighting

Minor: Blood and Vomit