I received Red Rising from Scootsa1000 (THANKS!!!) and ordered the sequel, Golden Son before I was even finished the first book. These books are bloodydamn great and you should buy them both immediately.
I don’t have the words to do them justice and I’m afraid my fumbling attempt might mistakenly convince you that, “Eh, it sounds like other YA dystopian books, been there done that. No thanks.” This would be a mistake.
Red Rising is the story of Darrow, who is a miner deep in the hellish bowls of Mars. He lives in a future where humans live in a highly structured class system with Golds at the top (powerful, wealthy, genetically enhanced) and Reds at the bottom (weak, malnurished, ignorant). Darrow is Red. Until he is painstakingly and brutally surgically modified into a Gold, so that he can infiltrate the highest echelons of society, and then destroy it.
“I’m a sheep wearing wolves’ clothing in a pack of wolves.”
Darrow, along with the other young elite Golds, head off to the Institute where the weak will be culled and the strong will be brutally forged into leaders. There is a Hungergames-esque vibe to the Institute as the young Golds are formed into houses that battle for supremacy; there can be only one winner. And battle they do. And it is brutal, glorious, ugly, heart-wrenching, and riveting.
Darrow is fierce, angry, and unbendable.
“Darrow is like a stallion, one of the old stallions of Earth. Beautiful beasts that will run as hard as you push them. They will run. And run. And run. Until they don’t. Until their hearts explode.”
Yet he forms a loyal alliance with a rich cast of characters. Cassius, the most golden of the Gold boys who is everything Darrow has feared and hated. And also like a brother. Pax, a terrifying mountain of a young man. Roque, a poet who seems too soft for the hardness of the Institute. Although Sevro is my personal favorite, small, ugly, almost feral.
“ ‘I killed their pack leader,’ Sevro says when I ask why the wolves follow him. He looks me up and down and flashes me an impish grin from beneath the wolf pelt. ‘Don’t worry, I wouldn’t fit in your skin.’ ”
Things move at a rapid clip with frequently unexpected turns, yet this is a book populated with complex characters who shine in quieter moments. Loyalties are earned and betrayed as each struggles to balance their humanity with their survival.
Golden Son, book #2 is the sequel and it is also gorydamned great. Two years have passed and Darrow and those who survived the Institute are now part of the broader society, the Peerless Scarred. They align themselves with powerful houses to curry political influence, money, and powerful positions commanding starships. Now fully embedded in Gold society Darrow plots to bring that society down.
But the Golds are not just the enemy, they are his closest friends and most loyal allies. And there are many powerful forces with varied agendas at play. This is a much bigger story than the first but no less brilliant and gripping. Where Red Rising was filled with brutal battles of young adults bearing iron weapons on horseback, Red Rising has warships where hundreds of thousands can be vented into the cold of space with the press of a button. But it is also more intimate with heady themes of love, loyalty, and loss running throughout. Betrayal and trust are at the heart of this story and I’m still aching from the powerful ending.
“We are not our station in life. We are us – the sum of what we’ve done, what we want to do, and the people who we keep close.”
These are powerful, beautiful, and gripping books. Pierce Brown has done an amazing job and I can’t wait to see what comes next.
I really liked the first book, and I’ve got the second coming up in a couple of weeks. Verrry excited. I don’t think these are YA, though. And if they’re being classified that way, I feel like side-eyeing who ever classified them. They read as very adult to me.
I’m not sure if they’re “officially” classified as YA but they’re frequently compared to Hunger Games and Divergent (I hate to mention that because it’s the definition of damning with faint praise to compare Red Rising to Divergent). I’m not sure I would feel comfortable handing this to a 12 year old (technically the early cut-off for YA). But if Hunger Games is YA, would not this also qualify?
Found this interesting post discussing this http://www.commonnovel.com/home/red-rising-a-case-study-in-classifying-young-adult
Ok, I haven’t read these (yet – I’m thinking about it for this year because Brown was under 25 when he wrote it and that fulfills a reading challenge for the year, but I kind of want to wait until the whole series is out next year) but I don’t know how I feel about that blog’s arguments about the great YA v A battle, and I want to talk about it.
I talked about this in my review for Mockingjay, that YA is not only about having a young protagonist, and having a teen protagonist doesn’t automatically make it YA. But more importantly to me, YA should be about providing the step ladder to get the readers to the eventual A, but still have enough meat on the bones for the grown-ups who are on the hunt for a good story.
I’m not going to disagree or agree with the female v male author point, because I know that I don’t know enough, but the point about covers… I don’t know am I missing something? I feel like LOTS of books have those silly scrawling titles on their covers. AND, maybe this is just because Rainbow Rowell is so awesome, but the overall design aesthetic of ALL of her books, A and YA is the same.
I’m stumped guys and gals. I’m stumped.
Also, did you read the Buzzfeed article that got referenced? Its interesting…
http://www.buzzfeed.com/erinlarosa/why-pierce-brown-might-be-fictions-next-superstar#.prlownE19x
Something about your comment sparked this thought. I know authorial intentions are largely discounted by most readers (although I think they’re important), but it seems to me if the author wrote the book for adults, then it’s adult. That doesn’t mean YA readers won’t like it. I read lots of adult books as a teenager. If the author wrote the book for a teenage audience, it’s YA. Seems pretty simple to me!
Hmm, I get what she’s going for in that post, but I have a hard time taking her that seriously because she insists that it’s being marketed as ‘literary’ when it’s not. It’s sci-fi. Adult sci-fi.
For my money, a book is YA when it won’t appeal to adults who don’t specifially like reading stories about young people’s problems. I agree that if we’re judging by those standards, Hunger Games should be considered adult as well, except that the violence (while there) is toned down to suit a younger audience. These books are detailed in their violence, unapologetically so. Also, THG books can be read in a couple of hours. These books are bricks.
Also, the HG books take place while Katniss is still a young adult. These books jump off when he’s 16, but I’m assuming they’re going to go way beyond that. They are already several years into their timeline at this point. Isn’t Darrow in his twenties for this novel? It’s the same for Ender’s Game, which she also cites. That book was originally written as a prologue for the book Card actually wanted to write, which featured Ender as an adult, but he realized he needed more than a prologue to do so.
It’s hard to put into words how to define genre classifications. I just sort of feel it in my gut, and everything I type to justify that feelings sounds silly. But there you go.
Because I’m a bit of a wierdo, I’ve spent the last hour looking into how one classifies YA, if there is any required criteria, etc. And as far as I can tell, there is no official entity that has defined this. There is however a vague:
– Protagonist is 12-18 years old.
– There is no prominent adult or parent figure in the story.
– The plot contains thematic elements that young adults can relate to.
By that vague definition, Red Rising could definitely be called a YA novel. Other YA novels (Hunger Games, The Knife of Never Letting Go) feature similar levels of violence. Other YA novels feature other traditionally “adult” themes with language, death, and sex. Darrow has many adult responsibilities (such as, a wife) but here are definitely characters in the book that read to me as “adult figures” while Darrow and friends are clearly the juvenile crew.
I could also argue that it’s adult science fiction, namely because that’s the category the publisher choose to put it in on Amazon.
However the books’ page (http://redrisingbook.com/book.php) relentlessly mentions Hunger Games and calls Darrow the new Katniss, so from that perspective, it feels like it’s being marketed at least generally towards YA readers.
I think Narfna brings up a good point – it’s YA (or not) because the author says it is although I’m not sure that the author has said clearly it is or it isn’t. Personally I wouldn’t blanche at sharing this book with older teens because the kids I know are already reading Ender’s Game, et al.
From what I can piece together the author and publisher view this as adult sci-fi, but it appears that they are jumping on the promotional bandwagon that is Hunger Games, et al.
But I think Narfna hit the point I was missing, that author intent is a huge part of the conversation, it can just be difficult to gauge sometimes.
YAY!!!!!!!!!!
I’m so glad you loved it as much as I did.
Can’t wait to read the second one (I’m #7 on the library list, but now I might not be able to wait that long).
Can you guys hurry up and read Golden Son so we can have a spoilerific discussion of everything that happens in it? Just finished it this morning and am dying, DYING to talk about it with somebody (especially the last 10% because holy crap). Can we form a mini Golden Son book club please?!?!
Also Sevro is my spirit animal.
Amazing! I cannot wait to read this series. Thanks so much for the review!
Please read it soon and then come to back to join our spoilerific discussion here (can we form some sort of cannonball book club to discuss stuff? I would totally be up for that!)
Hope you like it!
Ugh, I started the first book while hanging out in the bookstore with a few hours to kill and despite being completely taken by it, I never went back to buy the full copy. Even in the first few chapters, it struck me more as an adult book disguised as a YA book. It’s definitely on that border, and I can’t wait to get down and actually read these. Great review (and great in-comments discussion!).
I think technically it’s YA by the criteria of “young protagonist dealing with issues relatable by young people.” It’s also really violent and includes sexual assault.
I hope you enjoy them as much as I did. My husband is tearing through Red Rising and actually gasped while reading last night (am pretty sure that was a good sign ;).