Book Review: Red Rising by Pierce Brown

Red Rising by Pierce Brown
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I've not read the hunger games or any of its sequels or any of the derivative works that have spun from the concept of the everyman taking on the high and mighty. The books got better somewhere in the middle, but on the whole it was the same tired concept of fighting the powers that be by becoming one of them.

I hated that the author was holding back on the violence and there was so much telling in the book. "X stabbed Y in the stomach" why not, "the sword made a sick, squelchy sound as it entered X's stomach and the tip of the blade exited from his back like an angry demon's talon." (Yeah, now you know why I can't be a writer.)

All said and done, books like this one give me hope that I can do better.

I feel like I wasted my time in reading this book. Should have read half a war instead. Why are there so many books with teenagers fighting adults and higher powers. Why? Why can't YA be anything different? Why do oppressed teenagers have to fight everything in sight. Same ol' song and dance.

Fuck it.


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