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.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18966819-golden-son
3.5 stars out of 5
“But this is why I was made. To dive into hell.”
I have incredibly mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, I found it action packed with twists and turns I didn’t see coming. On the other hand, I found most of it to be long and slow. Hence my fixed feelings.
The book, for the most part, feels like a scifi space battle. Something I enjoy. However, these space battles felt long and dragged out. I couldn’t connect with what was happening because the way they were written. They weren’t written as well as the scenes from The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey, an epic space opera. That may be because of Brown’s writing style and not lack of experience of writing them.
As with the first book, the slang and world building isn’t explained point blank to the reader, which is a strength and a weakness. There are two ends to this spectrum. On one end, holding the readers’ hands by explaining everything. On the other, letting the readers sink or swim. Golden Son falls on the sink or swim end of the spectrum because the book assumes the reader has a certain level of intelligence to piece together the meaning of slang words and subtle information about the world. A more balanced medium would have been a better approach.
The reader is given more information about Eo and her motivations. For most of the book, Eo is an ideal that drives Darrow. However, once the information is revealed I couldn’t help but question her actions from the previous book. Her motivation and actions became very disconnected and confusing
The ending of Golden Son, by ending I mean the last few pages, are what ultimately salvaged the book for me. It finishes on a cliffhanger that is going to be hard to recover from emotionally and from a writing perspective.
Overall, Golden Son was slightly disappointing. I expected more from the sequel because of all the positive reviews and a high rating on goodreads. I understand I am in the minority when it comes to this book, but there were too many problems to overlook. I will read Morning Star, but not as soon as it’s released.
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