With shades of The Hunger Games, Ender’s Game, and Game of Thrones, debut author Pierce Brown’s genre-defying epic Red Rising hit the ground running and wasted no time becoming a sensation.
Golden Son continues the stunning saga of Darrow, a rebel forged by tragedy, battling to lead his oppressed people to freedom from the overlords of a brutal elitist future built on lies. Now fully embedded among the Gold ruling class, Darrow continues his work to bring down Society from within.
A life-or-death tale of vengeance with an unforgettable hero at its heart, Golden Son guarantees Pierce Brown’s continuing status as one of fiction’s most exciting new voices. 

My Review 

Author: Pierce Brown
Series: Red Rising #2

Pages: 464

Publication Date: January 6, 2015

Source: Library

I’m rusty at this review thing but I’m going to try for Darrow.

With the exception of Harry Potter, Outlander and maybe the Lumatere Trilogy, Red Rising is the absolute epitome of all the books I’ve read.

There is this chill that goes down ones spine when they know they are reading a great book. I felt that with Red Rising and the feeling was intensified in Golden Son, which was so much more complex and dramatic than its predecessor and if you’ve read Red Rising you’d also know that that’s quite a feat in itself. Pierce Brown has outdone himself.

The world is ten folds that of what we saw in Red Rising and so are the friendships, betrayals and action-drama sequences. I took a 3 day break because I couldn’t deal with certain revelations and other possible outcomes. This series has broken my heart so many times thus far and all that’s keeping me going is Darrow’s hope. It takes a moment to realize that his problems aren’t mine and his world is not real, however, Brown’s Martian society very closely resembles our own and its hard to not be fascinated and horrified by this paradigm.

Golden Son begins with a 2 year leap, Darrow begins the novel at age 18 commanding fleets at the Institute fresh and yearning for action, but finishes the novel as a full fledged man of war at age 20. I loved the subtle yet continues passage of time. A war doesn't happen in a month, it takes years and a lot of manpower something Pierce Brown made sure to address.

Darrow is a fantastic character to be inside the head of. His faith in humanity and capacity to love is heartbreaking given what he went through and continues to go through. It does help that he has some wonderful friends like Sevro and Ragnar. Sevro's sailors-mouth was always a welcome reprieve. This midget in wolfs clothes has really grown on me. On the other hand Ragnar was newly introduced in Golden Son and his relationship through not too deeply explored foreshadows to the future Darrrow's been working on and I'm so excited to see more and learn more about Ragnar's sisters and family. Also, special mentions go to the Telemanus's and Lorn of Arcos. Pax was my teddy bear in Red Rising and I'm glad there was more of the Telemanus's in this book.

“Rise so high, in mud you lie.” So many left in the dirt and now I have a sopping month to wait for the conclusion.

-MARI