Red Rising Review

Earth is dying. Darrow is a Red, a miner living on Mars, extracting precious elements in order to make the planet hospitable for the rest of humanity. What Darrow doesn’t know is that Mars has been hospitable for generations now and his people the Red’s have been used as slaves, being exploited and worked to death by the Gold’s.

I loved everything about his book. The pacing was excellent, the world building was meticulous and the characters were fully developed and interesting. I am so mad at myself that I didn’t pick this series up sooner!

Darrow is a wonderful character. He is loyal to a fault and has done the unimaginable in order to free his people from their constraints. He goes through quite the transformation over the course of the storyline and I love that we see him fall quite spectacular and still rise again against all odds. I think he is well on his way to becoming one of my favourite male protagonists ever! His drive and ability to not take no for an answer and the way he uses his logic and cunning to overcome all of his obstacles, despite being a red at heart!

I never trusted Mustang. I knew she was too good to be true, especially considering the circumstances, but she pleasantly surprised me. Her secret definitely threw me and I honestly didn’t anticipate any of her actions. I thought the big twist at the end was that she was going to stab Darrow in the back, but the way things all worked out was just so much better than what I was expecting!

Usually long drawn out war sequences can get quite tiresome and boring for me but this really had me invested from the start. I love a good school setting in fantasy/sci-fi and the added twist of the war games really kept me entertained! We are right on the ground with Darrow and there really isn’t a whole lot of just sitting around talking and strategising, which can get a bit blah.

This was also a lot darker than I anticipated. There is a lot of gore and blood involved. I like that Pierce Brown didn’t shy away from killing characters off and displaying the bloodlust some of these characters have. It raises the stakes to another level and keeps the tension at an all time high.

⭐️5/5 This will have you on the edge of your seat!