Golden Son Review

Quick Summary:
Golden Son is the sequel to Pierce Brown's Red Rising. In the first book, Darrow works on Mars as a miner, he is told that one day Mars will be able to be lived on. Until then, his people, the Reds, must work in terrible conditions. However, when he learns that Mars already has thriving cities and the Reds are used as slave labor, he is recruited to fight the Gold society from within. The first book has Darrow in the Academy to become a member of the Peerless Scarred, the highest Golds. The second book, Golden Son, has Darrow continuing his fight to destroy the Gold society and free his true people.

I don't want to give spoilers to people who haven't read the first book but I love this series so far. It's science fiction/dystopian and I could not stop reading either books. There is romance, which I really like (it's super cute, but also tough and devastating). However, the romance in no way overshadows what the books are really about and Darrow (the main character) makes his goals his priority. The books are quite brutal and violent to be honest, but I thought it made the revolution all the more realistic. I hate when books are about a dystopian society and the main character is fighting against it, but the fighting is weak. This book definitely does not hold back in that aspect. In the beginning, Darrow is 16 which I didn't really like because I'm not always a fan of such young people joining a revolution but the first book ends with him 18 and the second book starts with him 20, so time passes and you can see him grow into more of a man. He also doesn't immediately become a strong fighter, he has to train and the training isn't just for a couple of days (which I've seen in multiple series). I thought it was really well paced and had great character development.

There are a lot of allusions in the books and they took a line from one of my favorite poems which made me look at it in a whole new way which was awesome! There's a lot of deeper meanings in the allusions and something I found really cool about the books was how many Ancient Rome references there are. I've taken Latin for four years now and so it was really cool seeing how much they took from Ancient Rome's society. The names of ranks and people, there's "oracles" in the second book, and a lot more that I'm forgetting right now. However, it's weaved in perfectly with the science fiction.

Buy Red Rising and Golden Son! The third is called Morning Star and will be published in 2016 (not soon enough for me).