Red Rising (Red Rising #1) by Pierce Brown

My friend Danielle insisted I read this. I am glad she did.

When I started it I was only 40ish pages in and I was gutted and angry and I couldn't imagine where this was going. I was solidly in the corner of Darrow and there was very little he could have done to lose me but with his mission I wondered if that resolve would be tested. I needn't have worried. While he isn't perfect he is guided by love and loyalty and when he makes mistakes he seems to learn from them. Only, unlike the teenagers we are used to and their mistakes when Darrow makes mistakes it often costs a life or lives.

Darrow is a Red. He works the mines of Mars as a Helldiver and he believes the history of how his people ended up there. When circumstances put in a place of learning the truth about the world he lives in and the world outside his mine shaft everything is shaken. What is revealed is what might on the surface seem obvious, absolute power corrupts absolutely, but it is so much more in the pages of Red Rising. Brown takes what could be considered a sub-genre of YA, the post apocalyptic, government run amok and blood thirsty in their desire to stay in control, and he makes it feel fresh. Maybe it is the setting (Mars for example), maybe it is the throwing in of the mythology of the Gods of Olympus, or maybe it is that he is talented.

Either way, what we have here is a story that is though provoking on the evils of class division, concentration of wealth and power, and revolution.

I feel like maybe a small warning needs to be given, it is violent in parts and the group we are following with Darrow are young by our standards even if in their world they are old enough to marry. Don't let their ages, Darrow is 16 in Earth years, when we met him, turn you off, it is actually important to the idea I believe Brown is putting forth, the young can make a difference, can be smart and make change in the world.


Like all first books in a multi-book story Red Rising has to lay the groundwork for what comes next. It does this well and without many stumbles. I'm looking forward to reading book 2, Golden Son. And as added bonus all three books of this trilogy have been published so if you like it, as I did and suspect you will, there's no long wait for the other installments.

(Finished March 20, 2017)