Name: Red Rising
Series: Red Rising #1
Author: Pierce Brown
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Format: Paperback
Genres: Young Adult, Science Fiction / Fantasy, Dystopian
Spice Rating: None – mention of SA
Rating:
Synopsis: Goodreads
The Earth is dying. Darrow is a Red, a miner in the interior of Mars. His mission is to extract enough precious elements to one day tame the surface of the planet and allow humans to live on it. The Reds are humanity’s last hope.
Or so it appears, until the day Darrow discovers it’s all a lie. That Mars has been habitable – and inhabited – for generations, by a class of people calling themselves the Golds. A class of people who look down on Darrow and his fellows as slave labour, to be exploited and worked to death without a second thought.
Until the day that Darrow, with the help of a mysterious group of rebels, disguises himself as a Gold and infiltrates their command school, intent on taking down his oppressors from the inside. But the command school is a battlefield – and Darrow isn’t the only student with an agenda.
Break the chains. Live for more.
Review:
“Love and war are two different battlefields.”
Guys, I’m starting to question whether or not my tactic of not reading the back of the book is a good or a bad thing! One of the turning points in my journey with Red Rising was relatively early on when it was revealed that Mars is habitable and has been for a while… Turns out this was on the back of the book. So there is me, getting surprised over something that was literally on the back of the book… Is that a good thing or not? I’m still yet to decide…
Red Rising was on my 12 books challenge for 2025 as a member of my DND group loves this series, but I’ve seen it kind of everywhere over the last decade – and only ever heard good things about it. I’ve had it since 2015, and I’m surprised it took me this long to read it. Unfortunately, the book starts off really slow… Darrow doesn’t live an exciting life and not much happens initially so it took me quite a bit longer to really get into it as I had hoped…
There were however, several points early on that got a claw in me and dragged me back in each and every time I was considering that perhaps this just wasn’t the book for me… And then once the big challenges start for Darrow I was IN! I was invested and I simply couldn’t stop reading. I cancelled all my plans so that I could just sit and read the second half of this book uninterrupted (essentially uninterrupted anyway) because I couldn’t fathom not reading the next page, the next chapter… the next book. Sadly my order of the box set hasn’t arrived yet, so I am being forced to hold off on Golden Son. But, my TBR is definitely in danger because Golden Son is calling my name.
Darrow is not the most likeable main character, but arguably non of these characters were that likable initially… it took some time to warm up to… well, everyone that you were meant to warm up to honestly. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing – simply a reflection of the situation that Darrow found himself in while infiltrating this Gold school.
I’m not 100% sure I’m clocked on to the political situation / world that Pierce Brown is building, but I’m pretty sure this will get clearer as we go on!! And it certainly isn’t stopping me from grasping the basics at least and having a good time!
“I am the Reaper and death is my shadow.”
Reading With Tyler 
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