Red Rising

Or more like 3.5 stars, maybe even 3.75. When I first clicked “I'm finished”, I had no idea how many stars I was going to give this book. As I stared at those empty shapes I kept thinking that in general I liked it. I didn't have anything bad to say about the story or the writing. It was an interesting concept and vivid beginning. There were some issues in the middle. Places where I was like c'mon get on with it (and for the love of paperbacks, stop the waterworks over Eo). Darrow, our protagonist isn't always the most interesting, or heck even complex character. And the end, while a logical conclusion for the first part of a trilogy, it felt a bit like author knew he had to find a decent spot to make the break and so he closed his eyes and picked a page number out of a hat. There were world building problems, well if you want to consider a lack of world building a problem. We're thrown into this Martian world where humans have not only conquered but also figured out how to live on all the other planets in the solar system. Don't know a thing about how or why or even when. There are vague references to something happening on Earth, but they seem to contradict themselves - maybe an environmental disaster or was it a big war with coups and overthrown governments? A combination of the two with nukes involved? I honestly have no clue. Why do they use a color caste system? (seriously YA authors enough already with the color codes). Why do all these morons have the names of ancient greek and roman politicians and intellectuals and yet not think highly of the originals? Lots of questions, but no answers and that was a bit frustrating. (I'm hoping some of this is cleared up in the other books.) On the other hand, the action scenes were riveting. Watching Darrow figure out things out and use his advantages to spur others was fun. And most definitely can't forget Sevro. He was crazy scary fantastic fun.

I can definitely see the Hunger Games comparisons, but if that's all you're going to compare it with, you should really pick up a few other YA novels to add to your bedside to-be-read pile. The Divergent series. Harry Potter (where else would grav boots and ghost cloaks come from?). Lord of the Flies. Even a tiny bit of The Chocolate War. As I commented at one point this book is like a big ole melting pot of YA novels. Honestly, that's not a bad thing.

So it looks like I'll have to add Golden Son to my TBR list. And Morning Star (because I can't very well read only 2 out of 3 in the series).