Red Rising by Pierce Brown Review

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

They live in a color-coded society, Golds ranking the highest caste and Reds the lowest caste. Darrow is a Red, working hard to make the surface of Mars livable for future generations. But the Reds have been betrayed, Darrow discovers that the surface has been reached generations ago. He realizes that their caste is only slaves to the ruling Golds. Will Darrow be willing to sacrifice everything? He is forced to compete for his life against some of the best and brutal from the ruling caste. There he realizes he will stop at nothing to destroy his enemies...but how far is Darrow willing to go?

Well, well, well, this is a first. Who would have ever thought that Sci-fi/Dystopian will end up on my TBR? Definitely not me! This was all thanks to reading challenges I joined in 2023!

I have nothing to compare this book to. I have no experience with this genre. I started this book back in January, but most of the world building went over my head, so in the end a thriller won and this book was placed on the "I will get back to you"list. Then in  February I picked it up for the second time, I ate this book up in two days. The first 100 -150 pages, still went over my head, but once I figured out how this world worked, I didn't want to leave. I wanted to stay and finish every battle with Darrow. 

Pierce Brown knows how to write a brilliant story, even the political side of this novel didn't bore me. He definitely has an engaging writing style. Even when it takes you two tries to read this book... The characters are amazing and I definitely have a few I am attached to. I paired my e-book with the audiobook and the characters came to life. The narrator did a fantastic job with the audio. 

I have seen many reviews comparing this to The Hunger Games, in some ways I can see why, but apart from "the game", I think these two stories are very different. I loved The Hunger Games but Red Rising was something in its own league. 

Reading this book, showed me that there are amazing stories to discover in other genres and that I should most definitely keep expanding my reading horizons. Depending on the next books in the series, I can see this, possibly, becoming my next favorite series. 

I rated this book ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of 5 stars!