Red Rising by Pierce Brown
Started: 29 January 2022
Finished: 3 February 2022
[If you’re reading this from the future, yes, I’m finally catching up on the books I’ve read in the past few months. Enjoy!]
And the science fiction streak continues! THIS BOOK. It took me from page one. Specifically, this line:
On Mars there is not much gravity. So you have to pull the feet to break the neck. They let the loved ones do it.
chapter 1, Red Rising by Pierce Brown
It hit me in the teeth. The tone in that sentence encapsulates the tone of the book – the trilogy, really, as in present day I am about halfway through book 3, Morning Star. And for whatever reason, it hit the niche for me. I am definitely a mood reader; I don’t know what it says about me that a quote about a Martian gallows signaled to me that this was going to be a perfect fit of a book but… well.
Another thing Red Rising has going for it, of course, is Darrow. Our main character, a sixteen-year-old helldiver, is the wonderful mix of impetuous and reflective that we love to see. I took an instant liking to him. Brown brings his voice to life with colorful vocabulary and visceral details about life in the mines of Mars. It is a masterclass in introducing character, tone, and setting in the opening pages.
Now, you might have noticed I mentioned Darrow is sixteen at the start of the book.
There has been some internet discourse about Red Rising being a young adult novel.
It is not.
First of all, the publisher categorizes it as adult science fiction.
Secondly, first person POV and a sixteen-year-old do not make a book YA.
Let me repeat that.
First person POV and a sixteen-year-old do NOT make a book YA.
What makes a book YA?
That the core focus of the novel is on the conflict central to youth.
There is a fair amount of sleight of hand here, I think. It can be a subtle shift. I’ve seen comments that Red Rising‘s worldbuilding isn’t deep enough to be considered adult. That since it has a “boy goes to a school” trope and a sort of battle royale trope (which I would disagree with, the Institute in Rising is not an explicit battle royale, because technically no characters have to die for one to succeed and win, but, I digress…) it must be YA. Let’s list a few other adult SFF books that have school tropes:
- The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang
- The Magician’s Guild by Trudi Canavan
- The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
- The Magicians by Lev Grossman
- Almost every book Mercedes Lackey has written in her Valdemar universe.
- The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan
- The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
I have enough fuel for this rant to really be an entire post by itself. So I’ll finish by saying:
- There is nothing inherently wrong with YA books
- We should still classify books properly to help teenage readers discern what they are ready for
2022 Reads
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston
- Corinth 2642 AD by Bindiya Schaefer
- Red Rising by Pierce Brown