Red Rising by Pierce BrownMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
"Man cannot be freed by the same injustice that enslaved it."
The world of Red Rising is one of extreme hierarchy, where humans are color-coded into castes with rigid roles. At the lowest rung of the hierarchy are the Reds, who live, work, and die in the mines of Mars. They're kept in the dark in more ways than one. Sixteen-year-old Darrow expects to live out his life as any other Red, but his wife Eo is driven to "live for more". Eo's actions catapult Darrow into a mission to infiltrate the Golds, the top layer of society's hierarchy, and take down the system from the inside. As his immersion among the Golds progresses, Darrow finds that the world is not as black-and-white as he once thought.
At first, there were a few things that stood out as being promising. In the early chapters, Brown doesn't spoon-feed the reader, and it's sometimes necessary to read between the lines to understand what the characters are doing and feeling. Difficult and important debates arise - especially the question of whether one should engage in action and rebellion (and perhaps martyrdom), or just play along and get by. With a growing sense of unease, the story hurtles towards shocking moments in which his life changes, making it clear that anything could happen. Additionally, the book brings a Roman mythological flavor to interplanetary conquest, which seems like an original and intriguing idea
Unfortunately, once the main story gets going, my interest began to flag, in large part because I was unable to muster any kind of connection or reaction to Darrow. Ostensibly, he's physically and intellectually unprepared for the task ahead of him, but through a combination of perfectly-executed surgery, preternatural good luck, inherent brilliance, and inexplicable charisma, he blends right in as one of the most promising young members of Gold society. He's clearly the Chosen One, and there's never much question over whether he's going to come out on top in the end.
The plot seems to forego the interesting issues that were alluded to early on, and instead becomes a nested doll of recent literary phenomena: the power struggles of Game of Thrones within the teen gladiator scenario of Hunger Games, unfolding in a house-divided school like Harry Potter. (Of these, I only enjoyed Harry Potter, which may explain why the combination of things didn't work for me.) The book eventually acquires the feel of a high-fantasy saga, complete with castles and horses, that just happens to be embellished with futuristic technology. There is a lot happening, but it goes down a convoluted route at a plodding pace, and by the end it was a real effort to keep reading. It might have been easier to stick with if the writing style had been a little more varied or fluid, but it felt like sentence after sentence was written in the same choppy, pedestrian way.
I can see why this book, with all its grit and war strategy, appeals to many people. It just didn't do it for me.
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