I've always had a policy of reading any book that a student hands me. This is one of those and it was recommended by two students. Of course, it is also the first book in a six book series. (Looks like I have another series to wade through lol)
Red Rising is a science fiction novel set on Mars. The premise is that society has become highly stratified by class. Each class is designated by color with red at the bottom and gold at the very top. Our main character, Darrow, is a red. At the beginning of the novel, Darrow is a miner who is pretty much the best of the best for his clan. They live in tunnels under the surface of Mars and mine helium-3 for use in the terraforming process. They are told their whole brief lives that their sacrifice is for a better future and that in the generations to come, Mars will be fully terraformed and open to all. Darrow finds out pretty early in the story that they've all been lied to and that Mars is already fully terraformed and full of the higher classes living a life of relative ease.
As a result, Darrow ends up going in disguise as a gold to ultimately infiltrate the highest levels of the governing body. However, to do that he has to survive the institute which is a one year grueling war game played by all the elite gold teens who are competing with each other in a fatal game of 'capture the flag.' To complicate matters, the game is rigged.
It really reads like a version of Hunger Games. My students assure me that the similarity fades moving forward and the set up bears that out. Darrow is an odd kind of protagonist. He's angry all the time and filled with self-loathing. He should be a tedious point of view to get stuck in, yet I liked him anyway. I always appreciate intrigue in a story and there is plenty of that going on.
I really enjoyed this first volume, so I plan to continue on. My two students are ecstatic
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