Red Rising by Pierce Brown
Red Rising is a book that people seem to really love or really hate, according to the star ratings on bookseller websites. The plot deals with a 16 year old Darrow living as a miner on a terraformed Mars who is chosen to infiltrate a school of other elite teens. They will have to show their aptitude for leadership in a huge Hunger Games-like test. His goal is to bring down the corrupt government which took everything he once loved.
Does that sound like every other dystopian teen novel? Because it was.
The main character was a sort of Gary Stu – he was somehow good at everything, always had good luck (especially after really bad things happened), and had a heart of gold. He was in danger throughout the book, but I never really felt like he wasn’t going to make it out alive.
Red Rising was an easy read, and I did want to finish it and see how things resolved. I never felt like I really knew what was coming, though it still felt a little too much like Hunger Games. I guess the main difference was that in this approximately year-long game, the point is not to kill one another, but to take the opposing teams’ lands and resources. Killing was not supposed to be the method, but it happened frequently enough that it was a big concern for most of the students.
There’s a fair bit of Roman mythology weaved in, which was fun to try to see if there were comparisons to figure out. The Roman elements didn’t seem to have much bearing on the plot, but it may become so in future books.
The content in the book was a bit more mature than in Hunger Games, but not really too adult either. There were some sexual references, including name-calling and insults, and there were several mentions of rape. This book may be in YA sections in some libraries and Adult fiction in others, however, the characters are all teens, and the writing itself feels like other YA fiction. It’s likely that older teens would find this book interesting, a little edgy, but probably not be embarrassed telling their parents about it.
This is the first book in a trilogy, and this one ends with a huge set-up for whatever comes next. So, even though the plot felt a little too unoriginal, it was still a decent read. I would hesitate recommending it to younger teens or anyone who wants a squeaky-clean book – the characters are vengeful, sometimes murderous, manipulative, etc. Darrow is all of these things, but he is conflicted about it and thinks about it often – he has to infiltrate the government to bring it down, and he has to be the things he hates to do it.
There is a movie in the works, so you can be sure this book will only grow in popularity. You’ll probably see more and more of it in the coming months.
Overall, if you like books with sci-fi elements that don’t deal too deeply with complex technology or space travel, and if you like huge casts of characters with interweaving plots, this book will likely entertain and leave you wanting to find out what happens next. I’d give it 3 out of 5 Mars, er, stars…
