Red Rising is a dystopian science fiction novel written by Pierce Brown. The story is about a boy
name Darrow who is a low born miner in Mars who infiltrates the upper class Golds to free his
low class Reds from oppression. The different classes are separated into colors such as low
class colors: Red and Brown and high class colors: Gold and Silver. The only way Darrow can
become a Peerless Scarred and a Gold who can have true power is to be tested in a battle
royale with other Golds and prevail.
This book is almost like The Hunger Games with its battle royale system, but the world is much more
fleshed out and interesting. Society being separated into different colors was intriguing and the
author successfully made me invested in Darrow as he is becoming one of my favourite main
characters. Criticisms of the novel can be that once the battle royale starts and characters are
introduced the pacing stalls and the novel can be boring for a chapter or two until it suddenly
picks up once again. From here on the novel is like a snowball as the pacing gets faster and
faster and by the end with a jawdropping climax between Darrow and the villain, I had
thoroughly enjoyed this book. While this book is very much YA and may not be attractive to
adults this book is prefect for teenagers who want a great introduction into great science fiction
novels.