Red Rising by Pierce Brown. I’m late to this party, but the cool thing was that I got to binge read the entire trilogy. I’m not going to review everything in the story because the plot is too massive to succinctly condense.
Instead, I’ll summarize my thoughts by saying how much I admired, envied, and loved Mr. Brown’s beautiful writing and his remarkable characterizations (and this is easily the strength of a series filled with many strengths). In addition, no good space opera is complete without battles that put you RIGHT THERE and Mr. Brown doesn’t disappoint. And did I mention that the books give off a strong epic fantasy vibe even though the series is technically science fiction? It’s like the very best amalgamation of Dune, Hunger Games, and Game of Thrones and an overall absolutely fabulous series.
A word of caution: like many, I put off Red Rising because when I sampled it, I realized that it was written in first person, present tense, something I thought I’d hate. I didn’t, and I quickly stopped noticing it. Oh, yes. And a new book in the series, Iron Gold, releases this month.