Pierce Brown

This is probably somewhere between 4 and 5 stars, but looking at the trilogy as a whole I think it deserves the higher rating. The good news: the story ends in a way that I appreciated and felt satisfied with. The bad news: it isn't as good as Golden Son. But that's OK, because it is an entirely different novel and it had to be.

I have a lot of thoughts in my head right now, so I'll probably come back later for a more fleshed out review.

Things I liked: Pierce Brown is more unforgiving that G.R.R. Martin and I'm OK with that; character development is better and Darrow is still kind of an idiot at times while simultaneously being brilliant; the battles are well choreographed and epic.

Thing I didn't like: Mustang made some questionable decisions that seem...I don't know, weird; A certain someone dies and I'm still weeping; the story was more scattered with less of an idea of where we were going, unlike Golden Son or even Red Rising (it becomes clear, but I was confused for a good portion of the beginning).

All in all, I loved the series. One of my favorite trilogies now, especially in science fiction.… (more)

Wow. I thought Red Rising was good, but this took everything to a whole new level. The world building, the action, the characters, the plot...all of it beyond my expectations. As a side note, I'm not sure why this is marketed as YA. It's not.

From the start, the story moves fast. There is rarely any downtime and there is a lot of action, but not at the expense of the story or character building. In fact, I think Pierce Brown does a phenomenal job with pacing and has mastered what he was trying to accomplish in Red Rising. I had a lot of thoughts about this book as I read, one being in reference to Game of Thrones (only because of the body count...it's high) and the other being Dune (in how epic it is in scope).

All in all, this is one of the best sci-fi books I've read. Ever.… (more)