A good ending to a good series.

If I was just rating the story of this book (and this series), I would probably give it all five stars. But holy crap, Pierce Brown’s writing style is so melodramatic and self-serious sometimes, his prose so purple, I think it must be suffocating from a lack of oxygen. When he forgets to try to be Important and A Good Writer and just writes, his story shines.

Oh, and Sevro is amazing.

So this is the last book in the Red Rising trilogy (but not the last book set in this universe with these characters), and I think honestly it was a great ending. I was worried because I saw so many mixed reviews, but it did everything I didn’t even know I wanted from it. (I tried not to go in with any expectations, so maybe that has something to do with it.)

There wasn’t a single character whose ending I was unhappy with. The battles were exciting and very, very cool. Plot twists were well executed. It didn’t try to pull off too much like some trilogy enders do. He’s also really good at dialogue. I also thought he finally pulled off something the other books didn’t, mostly because they weren’t interested in doing it–I really finally felt the scope of this world. We got to see the world of Ragnar’s people. We get to travel to a moon that is a huge city. We go out and see the territory of the moon lords. We go to the moon (Luna)! He also did a great job balancing individual character arcs with the scope of the fighting.

It’s just, sometimes I’ll be reading and be unable to stop myself from rolling my eyes at some of the ways Brown phrases his writing. He also gets really repetitive about things he thinks are “important” and “meaningful,” which in my opinion actually has the opposite effect of what’s he intending. If I had to hear him repeat “break the chains” one more time . . . Darrow is also really obsessed with his and other peoples’ souls being “knit back together” or “pulled back together”. It was clunky. Like I said above, I wish he wouldn’t try so hard. I’d give you examples, but I’ve already long returned it to the library, and paid $1.50 in late fees as it is.

Despite our opinions on writing styles not matching, Pierce Brown delivers everything else that I look for in a story (especially space opera/sci-fi), so I’m definitely in for anything else he’s going to write. I will just continue to hope that his writing style calms the hell down as he matures as a writer and person.