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My Review:Title: Red Rising
Author: Pierce Brown
Series: Red Rising Saga #1
Published by: Recorded Books
Release Date: January 28, 2014
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Tim Gerard Reynolds
Length: 16 hours and 12 minutes
Genres: Dystopian, Science Fiction
Potential Triggers: View Spoiler »
Source: Hoopla
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2022 Audiobook Challenge, Lenoreo's 2022 Backlist Reader Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ IndieBound ✩ iTunes ✩ Libro.FM ✩ Chirp
My rating:
Blurb:"I live for the dream that my children will be born free," she says. "That they will be what they like. That they will own the land their father gave them."
"I live for you," I say sadly.
Eo kisses my cheek. "Then you must live for more."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.
3 stars — Well darn. I don’t know what book everyone else read, but apparently I am wholeheartedly in the minority within my bookish friends. My hubby and I listened to this one, and it took over *3* months for us to get through this. Brett would be like “wanna listen to another chapter?” and I would *sigh* and maybe say yes or maybe say no. To say I wasn’t compelled for, say, two third’s of this book is pretty accurate. There were some great highlights and exciting moments, and I did experience emotions in a few parts. But overwhelmingly the emotion I felt was boredom and disconnectedness.
And most of that comes down to Darrow. I could not, for the life of me, connect with him. I see friends who list him as one of their fave heroes, and I can’t help but wonder if that’s more from later books in the series?? Because I really didn’t feel much for him, other than the moments where I felt INTENSE frustration. I mean, for someone who was so smart, he could be pretty fucking dumb. I can’t tell you how many times I huffed and rolled my eyes when I saw him making yet another obvious mistake, or missing yet another obvious clue.
I can’t help but wonder if it’s because we listened to it, but I enjoyed the narrator. Sometimes his accent could be hard to understand, and maybe I should have sped him up a teensy bit more, but I always worry about missing something.
The world building was okay. I wasn’t feeling super wowed by it, but maybe it’s just not where my interests lie. I enjoyed the caste system, and all that…but I felt like we didn’t get to see a whole lot of the outside world before we were in the game. At least not enough for me to have much of an opinion of it.
My bread and butter is characters, and for at least 2/3 of this book I had no one to root for. Everyone was kind of fucking awful. I know we were supposed to be rooting for Darrow, but he was so wrapped up in his need for vengeance and his anger, and trying to figure out how to accomplish his mission, that I just didn’t care about him all that much. I enjoyed Eo, and then she died (and I cried). I would have rather had her as a heroine to follow, instead of Darrow taking up a mantel he didn’t really understand or believe in on his own. I enjoyed Rouk (however you spell that), but he was pretty side character-y. I was fascinated by Sevro, but they sure didn’t pick up on his potential until way later…I would have loved to have had more time with him. By the time we get to the part with Mustang, I’m kind of over all of these idiots being horrible to one another. I wanted someone with some humanity. Mustang was okay. I figured out her deal pretty early on (which just made me more and more frustrated with Darrow for not figuring it out). But we didn’t see enough of her to really make a strong connection. Ironically, I started to really love Pax, and well…
The plot definitely picks up in the last third, and I was more interested in how it was going to pan out. But of course Darrow keeps blundering, and getting caught up in his own head. There were some pretty anti-climactic moments near the end. I wasn’t really surprised by anything.
And so now I want to know what happens, but I’d rather just read the cliff’s notes. So I’m going to let my hubby read the rest and he can tell me if he’s more invested…and if not, he can just tell me the highlights. *shrugs* Apparently my hipsterism is showing.
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