Review: Red Rising (Red Rising #1)

Red Rising (Red Rising #1)
By Pearce Brown

Published By: Del Rey
Publication Date: January 28, 2014
Date Read: December 12, 2023
Genre: Adult – Dystopia / Sci-fi
Source: Bought
Format: Audiobook
Pages: 382

From Goodreads:
Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of Mars livable for future generations.

Yet he spends his life willingly, knowing that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better world for his children.

But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity already reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and sprawling parks spread across the planet. Darrow—and Reds like him—are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class.

Inspired by a longing for justice, and driven by the memory of lost love, Darrow sacrifices everything to infiltrate the legendary Institute, a proving ground for the dominant Gold caste, where the next generation of humanity’s overlords struggle for power. He will be forced to compete for his life and the very future of civilization against the best and most brutal of Society’s ruling class. There, he will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies… even if it means he has to become one of them to do so.

Red Rising is such a book of conflict for me. I am so conflicted in my thoughts and opinions on this highly popular sci-fi/dystopia series. I originally tried reading this book way back in 2014, when it first published and I ended up DNF’ing it. If you would like to read my DNF review and find out all the reasons why, you can find that by clicking here. However, it was always in the back of my mind about whether I should try it again at some point. My reading tastes have changed a hell of a lot over the years since I tried it, and after having it recommended to me again and again and everyone being shocked that I DNF’d it, I decided maybe it was time to give it another go. And I did in fact enjoy it more… however, I still just don’t get the hype over this series. I’m so confused by it all, and I am just left wondering ‘what is it that I am missing?’

Now, this time around I decided to listen to the audiobook and the narrator was good. He gave the characters a good depth and did a fantastic job of bringing them to life. However, I still had the same problem that led to me DNF’ing this book in the first place. I was bored. I was zoning out. This book, in my opinion, has some serious pacing issues. I did enjoy it significantly more than the first time, but I can’t help but feel like if I had been reading it physically, I’d have DNF’d it again. I tend to be much more patient when listening to audio editions.

Now let’s go with the positives… I really enjoyed the premise. The start of this book, which I had found boring the first time I read it, I loved. I loved this idea of humans working on Mars thinking that they are helping to make the planet inhabitable even though they are being lied to and used for slave labour. Honestly, this premise… is incredible. I absolutely loved the premise of this. And the first part of the book where Darrow is mining, I loved. It grabbed me and I was so excited about where the story was going to go.

And then we got to the part where he is starting to become a ‘gold’ and the pacing for me ebbed and flowed. I was really into it one minute, then I was bored and zoning out another. And this continued pretty much for the rest of the book. There were parts I loved and felt excited that it was starting to pick up… and then I was bored out of my mind again. I honestly can’t put my finger on what it was but for such a short book at less than 400 pages, I struggled to keep my attention on the book. By the time I got to the last few chapters I was just ready for it to be over.

I still just feel like I’m missing something. I really, really wanted to love this book. And I’m just all kinds of confused as to what it is that people obsess over. I wanted to be one of you! But unfortunately, I’m just not. I was disappointed. I felt like there was just something missing, and that makes me sad because the start of this book has so much promise to me. It kind of feels to me, like this book is two different books. I know that makes no sense, but the start of it has such a great premise and then it was like the characters and the plot just flipped a 180, and I was like what is going on. I have yet to decide whether I am going to continue with the series or not. A part of me wants to, to see if I can find that ‘thing’ that I’m missing, but another part of me is like, you’ve tried this book twice now. Maybe it’s just not for you!

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