"Red Rising"

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

Pages: 384 Genre: sci-fi, fantasy

Rating: 1 Stars

See my Notes and Highlights from the book here.

Darrow is a Red, the lowest caste in a future world where society is color-coded. Reds work all day every day in an attempt to create a livable world on Mars — or so they thought. Darrow eventually discovers that they're being lied to; the reality that they're dreaming of has been realized, but Reds are kept apart as slaves. Motivated by a sense of betrayal and lost love, Darrow infiltrates The Institute, a place where Golds (the top caste) go to prove themselves as the best. He's forced to compete with and against the ruling class in order to bring down his enemies and keep himself alive.

I really thought I'd love this book. It seems highly acclaimed, yet I found it to be poorly-executed at best and violently misogynistic at worst.

The way women were written in this book was shockingly bad. Women only had worth as much as they contributed to Darrow's success (some exceptions could be made if they were with a different man, because they are still fulfilling that role for someone else). Additionally, anything seem as feminine is bad, including things like weakness or sexuality (to a point that was pretty homophobic as well, but that's a whole other conversation) or any amount of softness. The one and only woman we seemed to respect because of any merit of her own aggressively puts down other women, and we fridge multiple women just so that Darrow can feel more important. Every time that I'd start to enjoy the book, someone would say some sexist nonsense and I'd get annoyed all over again.

On a similar note, the way rape is handled in this book is borderline horrifying. It happens way too frequently and is never handled corrected. The narrative is really only concerned with how Darrow feels about it, not how the victims may be impacted. Eventually someone does remind Darrow that he should consider their feelings, and she tells him that the rapist doesn't need to be punished ... for some reason. This could be a difference in perspective I'd be willing to address if Darrow didn't proceed to promote the guy and see him as one of his most trusted people.

Red Rising was constantly proving that Darrow and the author both only viewed women as accessories to Darrow's story and success instead of brilliant and skilled people in their own right. After all, they got into the Institution for a reason too. I would go so far as to say that all of Darrow's success was on the back of a woman who got exactly one line of recognition that was, you guessed it, just to bring down a different man.

Frankly, as a main character, Darrow is just awful. He truly believes that he's God's gift to man, and he's got the ego to prove it. Despite being in the role of Jesus Revolutionary, he doesn't seem to actually be driven by anything other than a vague sense of rage. Sure, he wants Reds to be treated better. But what does that really mean? And how do all of his actions support that goal? After getting him into the Institution and him winning, it doesn't feel like there's any real plan. Not to mention that the revolution falls so far into the background that I had almost completely forgotten about it by the end of the book.

Darrow also manages to be somehow brilliant and clueless. He will manage to pull off amazing feats without even trying, communicating seemingly-telepathically to others and not even getting a scratch. But then on the next page he'll fall into the most obvious trap (obvious by both nature of the trap and because it's happened to him already). He never appears to learn anything, just levels up like a video game character unlocking new pieces of a skill tree. He decides to be better and is, but he doesn't develop, so his success feels inevitable and uninteresting.

Outside of Darrow, none of the other characters matter. All you need to know is how Darrow feels about them, because that's all they are. We live to worship or despise Darrow, and nothing else matters. There are two boys and one girl who feel like they have some kind of personality independent of Darrow, but only barely. And with the amount of side characters we meet, this is a real shame. It makes the book feel empty and lifeless.

Red Rising's biggest crime is the pacing. The first third of the book almost doesn't matter at all. Sure, it gives Darrow a foundation, but it's boring and largely irrelevant. You meet a million people and learn a million new aspects of the worldbuilding that I'm sure will be relevant at some point in books 2-6, but they took up too much time to not be brought up at all in the later half. I will admit that once we're in the Hunger Games, I was at least interested enough to not dread reading, but for all the reasons listed above, I couldn't bring myself to actually care. The ending is a letdown too, but I can't say more without spoiling it.

I also wasn't impressed with the writing. It felt like a teenage boy gained consciousness on the same day he got a Reddit account, leading him to share all of Super Deep and Kinda Edgy quotes with the world that are just regular thoughts but written with an air of superiority. All of the prose was just a little too proud of itself.

I know I'm ten years late, but trust me when I say it would be a better use of your time to just reread the Hunger Games instead of getting into this series. That being said, I am planning to read the second book, so I guess we'll have to see how it goes. I also know that this book is 10 years old (its birthday was in January), so perhaps I would appreciate Brown's writing and perspective more in the modern era. It's just a shame when men write books that are clearly only written with no consideration of a broader demographic.