society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of Mars liveable 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 already 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."
This was a solidly good book, so much so that I recommended it to my Dad. The plot was unique enough to be interesting, the world building unique and the writing strong and exciting.
While you read, you will recognize many ingredients from other YA/fantasy series. The big discovery of society's true nature was reminiscent of the Matrix. The caste system is like Divergent. The Institute sorts it's students into houses like Harry Potter. The cutthroat competitions among the Golds is very like The Hunger Games with a smattering of Lord of the Flies. And the nature of the training is described as a year-long deadly game of capture-the-flag, in which the houses (all named after Roman gods) fight one another while the proctors float about them and watch from a levitating mountain called Olympus felt very Rick Riordan.
Yet Red Rising is more than the sum of its parts. Brown manages to craft all these elements into something new, believable, exciting and surprisingly very brutal for the supposed YA tropes it consists of. I couldn't help getting swept away in Darrow's story as we follow him from the lowly life of a miner to the very heights of Olympus and there where moments that genuinely shocked me.
The main negative that drops this books from being excellent to good is the main character, Darrow. He is frustratingly perfect. Average, he is most definitely not. Darrow is meant to be perfect because he's the SYMBOL OF HIS PEOPLE, he was plucked from the mires of obscurity to save his people. Unfortunately, this left him with little place to grow or develop as a character. He didn't have to struggle, he didn't feel out of place, he wasn't lagging behind. There was no tension there. He would make a fantastic face of a revolution, but in terms of characters I can get behind, root for and care about... he wasn't doing it for me. I preferred the other characters around him, such as Pax, Mustang and my favourite little murder goblin, Sevro.
The language, while most of the time excellent, with the prose being original but not bulky, left the political language incredibly melodramatic. There was something so contrived, even scripted, about it. Like preachy political (Communist) propaganda, spoken on a clifftop with sword pointed in the air. It made me roll my eyes more often than it made me feel inspired. This is not helped by the egotistical strain of some of the writing, where Darrow, and I have a feeling Brown in extension was patting himself on the back. There is one scene in the beginning of the book, where Darrow is internal monologuing that he is the best Helldiver (drill driver) and that everyone else is too scared. Just scared dogs cowering to the Golds and only he is brave, manly and macho. I was like...Dude, you are 16...chill...I think they probably have more life experience. Maybe they are scared for a reason? hmmm?
The reason this book does work is the real sense of tension, nastiness and drama. It's easy to get caught up in the atmosphere of the story. You get the feeling throughout that the author isn't afraid to rip your heart out, shred it, and stand laughing amid the fallen pieces. Which enabled me to read on with interest and investment, despite my lack of connection to the main character. I will certainly be reading the rest of the trilogy as I think that Darrow will have more room to grow on a bigger playing field.
However this is certainly not a YA novel. There was rape, hints of cannibalism and a realistic brutality to the fighting that I don’t think is suitable for a younger audience. Thus...Age Rating 16+.
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