red rising trilogy reviews

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(as of Dec 22, 2024 03:39:15 UTC - Details)

Darrow would have lived in peace, but his enemies brought him war. The Gold overlords demanded his obedience, hanged his wife, and enslaved his people. But Darrow is determined to fight back. Risking everything to transform himself and breach Gold society, Darrow has battled to survive the cutthroat rivalries that breed Society's mightiest warriors, climbed the ranks, and waited patiently to unleash the revolution that will tear the hierarchy apart from within.

Finally, the time has come.

But devotion to honor and hunger for vengeance run deep on both sides. Darrow and his comrades-in-arms face powerful enemies without scruple or mercy. Among them are some Darrow once considered friends. To win, Darrow will need to inspire those shackled in darkness to break their chains, unmake the world their cruel masters have built, and claim a destiny too long denied - and too glorious to surrender.

Reviewer: David Maldonado
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Philosophical, cathartic, mind-blowing my amazing! Not enough words to describe it all!
Review: Hello readers,I am excited to bring this review to you. I finished this book two days ago, and I just could not write a review outright. I know that sounds funny, but the overwhelming variety of emotions I felt after completing this book was just too much to bare. So please bare with me, as I do my best to describe why this book is so amazing, because I know for a fact there's no way anything I can say will do it justice.The Red Rising trilogy is a rare trilogy that has been solid all the way through. Most authors burst onto the scene with vengeance, some gain momentum as they go, and yet others hit their peak midway through. Pierce Brown is a rare author who has written solid gold all the way through. Sadly, my blogging hiatus happened during the time I read Red Rising and Golden Son, so I never got to review it. I will say a bit about each before I move on to the glorious Morning Star.Red Rising is a book that takes place in space, where everyone is part of a caste system. Golds are depicted as God like figures, and rule over the Greys, Obsidians, Pinks, and on the lowest level, Reds. (I'm sure I'm missing a color or two, but you get my point. Our protagonist Darrow is a lowly red, and like all his people, suffer because he's not part of the ruling class. Golds act like tyrants, and like all tyrants, they believe they rule for the better of everyone. Now, I won't give out spoilers, but a catalytic event takes place that sends Darrow on a road of revenge, glory, love, and most of all, betrayal. Darrow becomes a shining beacon for his people, and Red Rising is a book that shows us that Darrow is a character not to be taken lightly.Golden Son, also known as book two, continues the journey Darrow and his band of misfit supporters have embarked on. Their goal: justice and freedom for all. An uprising has begun to happen, and Golden Son is smack dab in the middle of things. It was very political in the sense that, it reminded me of a Presidential Campaign. Who has who's vote? Who will fight for whom? What resources can you provide? Are you willing to double cross the opponent for the right price? And so on and so forth. The biggest theme for me is betrayal. Golden Son ends with the biggest cliffhanger I've ever read, and the fact that we had to wait a whole year for Morning Star was not easy. Darrow learns an important lesson and I'll just say he's never truly the same. Heart-breaking really.Now, for the best book yet, Morning Star. Where to begin I ask myself...Pierce Brown has created such a wide variety and swoon-worthy characters and he makes it feel effortless. Darrow is the hero we all want, deeply flawed but we love him viscously. Mustang is a fierce woman character that modern literature gravitated to, and with good reason. Dear old Sevro is by far one of my favorite characters in literature. He's hilariously blunt, a fierce fighter, deeply loyal to Darrow, yet we all can see he has daddy issues. On character I loved to hate was Aja. She was fierce, cruel, and entitled in her Gold status. She was definitely a female version of Joffrey Baratheon from Game of Thrones. There's plenty of other characters to discuss, but these four stand out the most to me.The dialogue and fluid banter between characters is superb, and I'm sure I laughed out loud more times than I could count.The. Damn. Plot. Oh! My! God! Never in my entire book-reading life have I ever been so on edge with a book. This book gave me twists and turns, perouettes, literally everything Pierce Brown could throw at you---he did! The battles are phenomenally described, and Brown doesn't bog down his book with murky and boring details, despite the massive length of his book that might make you think otherwise.I don't think I can say anything else except me sharing some important quotes that are near and dear to me. These quotes come from some of the best moments in the book, and pretty much the trilogy. Many are empowering dialogues, philosophical cathartic moments, and some are just down-right heart breaking in the grand spectrum of things. Read them and weep :)When I looked up at my father as a boy, I thought being a man was having control. Being the master and commander of your own destiny. How could any boy know that freedom is the lost the moment you become a man. Things start to count. To press in. Constricting slowly, inevitably, creating a cage of inconveniences and duties and deadlines and failed plans and lost friends.Pierce Brown hit home with this quote. It spoke to my adult self, mourning the death of my youth. We can only dream now of our youthful glory days. Touché Brown, touché!We were just an idea. But Roque has made them think the thought that unites all masters who have ever been: what if the slaves take my property for their own?So insightful. I would have totally used this in my African American slave narratives class if I could have had the chance. I'm sure all tyrants fear this, as they should.Battles are won months before they are foughtThis gave me Sun Tzu Art of War REALNESS! It's a brilliant deductions, and so true. It reminded me of one of my favorite book trilogies The Shattered Sea by Joe Abercrombie, particularly book three Half a War. I can't find the quote but it was something like half a war is fought on the battle field, while the other half is fought politically. Horrible paraphrasing, but that is the sentiment behind it. Planning is everything!And....that's it readers. I literally can go on for days about this book. It took me there and back again. I haven't felt so emotionally invested in a book in such a long time. It was refreshing to do so again. If you haven't read this trilogy, I urge you, PLEASE DO! Even if it isn't your type of genre, I promise you there's a little something for every kind of reader. And of course, if your are a YA, Fantasy, Science Fiction fan, this is a definite must-read for you.

Reviewer: AustinTiffany
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: An Amazing Conclusion!
Review: This story was incredible. It was a nail-biting emotional roller coaster that brings the entire trilogy to an insanely dramatic, swift, brutal, and tumultuous close. If I could give this story 6 out of 5 stars, I would. While I came into the trilogy with a less than favorable opinion (I gave Red Rising only 4 stars), this series has only gotten better and better. Without question, collectively this is my all-time favorite trilogy.When last we left Darrow, his Triumph on Mars following the routing of the Sovereigns forces was sabotaged. Nero, Lorn, and Fitchner (Ares) were killed, along with many others, due to Roque's surprise betrayal (along with Adrius [ Jackal ], but we knew he was going to betray Darrow at some point). And right before the book closes, it's made clear that Darrow's secret is known, at least by those in power: he's actually a Red in disguise.Morning Star picks up right at the end of Golden Son ... and things are not pretty. One thing I have to give to Pierce Brown is that he does not shy away from killing characters and bringing harm to the protagonists, and while this is nothing but stressful for the reader, it's ultimately better than creating a sense of invulnerability that would otherwise make things drag along with no real suspense. So, without spoilers ... the opening to Morning Star does not find Darrow in a good place. And the rest of the book proceeds with the same sense of dread and doom hanging over most scenes, this sense that, at this point, 3 books in, anyone could turn out to be a spy or a turncoat, that a given plan could go disastrously, that a favorite character could die horribly. And, again without spoilers, that is sometimes the case. Morning Star is nothing short of an emotional roller coaster. In the final 10% of the book, I found myself so caught up in a sudden turn of events that I all but speed-read through the rest to find out what the conclusion would be, because I couldn't just stop reading in the middle of such drama! And without a doubt, the final 10% is intense. Before you get to this point, make sure you have 30 minutes to an hour to finish without interruption.Yet despite all this, Pierce manages to somehow find little moments here and there in the narrative to slip in some levity. Most of the time these are interactions between Darrow, Sevro and Ragnar, and occasionally a few other characters. He manages to perfectly pace this story so that it is an even and changing mix of drama, tension, suspense, levity, genuine emotional explorations, and action. He also manages to slip in a few sly and kind of funny pop-culture references without breaking stride. And of course, 3 books in, there is a lot of deep character exploration and soul-searching, not only for Darrow, but for those around him. Whereas in Red Rising, Darrow was the star, and the story was all about him doing the impossible on a quest that was ostensibly about vengeance, Morning Star steps back and looks at all of the OTHER characters around him to show that we've now reached a scale that involves more than just petty revenge.Among all this, there's a few minor gripes I have, nothing that breaks anything. Pierce continues to falter on occasion with adequately explaining a scene, or occasionally adopts a skimming pace that just hits you with bullet points rather than actual narrative. But this is few and far between, and mostly happens between major scenes to help with time dilation or to keep the overall pace from getting dragged down. And while Pierce actually gave, to date, the most description regarding what EXACTLY the Razor is (it has a toggle switch and a thumbstick or pad or something! THAT'S how they make the shapes of the weapon, you guys!), he still fails to really adequately describe some weapons or devices (I still have no idea what a pulseFist is. At times I imagined it like the weaponized thruster on the hand of the Ironman suit, but then another scene would indicate it had a barrel and a trigger, so then I thought it was wrist mounted). Additionally, a lot of characters in this book take a lot of damage and injuries, and at times this really stretches the bounds of believability. Yes, I know Golds are super-humans compared to us modern day apes, but there were some things I was just left thinking "Really? All that happens, and he's walking around like nothing?" And finally, during the epilogue, there is a final little twist thrown in that, while really poignant, seemed a bit out of left field. It's not anything like a deus ex machina, but the chances it would happen seem PRETTY STEEP.Overall, an amazing book. I'm still reeling from the final 10% of this novel. As with Red Rising and Golden Son, this book is full of twists and turns, political intrigue, suspense, action, emotion, brutality, intelligence, and humor, and by the end of it you'll be drained.

Reviewer: Pedro M
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: El autor aumenta el interés de la trama en cada libro, aunque lo clasifican como fantasía grimdark al final lo resuelve satisfactoriamente sin el truco de dejar todo con un cliffhanger. Definitivamente continuaré la seré con la lectura de la siguiente trilogía.

Reviewer: Morgan Rae
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Wow, an epic series! I'll wait to continue the next part of this series but I really enjoyed this! Such a complex world from the ethics, the politics and relationships. So many twists and turns I didnt see coming. This series hurts in the worst and best ways. I loved the arc of the MMC Darrow and his bestie Severo. Excited to see where this series continues. I really enjoyed how this series included earth history into this incredible futuristic world, it made it feel plausible.

Reviewer: LPST
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I don’t even have words to describe my feelings for this book. It’s definitely one of my favourite series ever.

Reviewer: Manda Scott
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This is a fitting ending to an excellent series that explores ideas of equity and justice, honour and integrity, love and loss and what it is to be human. I realise it’s not the end- but it was written as if it were and the result is satisfying on every level. I am glad there’s more, but even absent the rest, this is as good as it gets.

Reviewer: Ana
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: It’s a page turner. It adds a necessary layer of complexity to the overall story, and all the dilemmas that arise when you play the “change the world” game. Are heroes pure? How does a hero rise?