ARC Review: Golden Son

Golden Son by Pierce Brown
Red Rising Trilogy #2
Publisher: Del Rey (Random House)
Release Date: January 6th, 2015
Source: Netgalley
Date Read: 1/4/15 to 1/9/15
464 Pages
Rating: ✰✰✰✰✰

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.

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Golden Son was given to me through NetGalley in exchange for an honest opinion. 

I am seriously not okay. NOT OKAY I TELL YOU. After reading Red Rising, I was eager to get on with Golden Son, and I was not disappointed with the amount of action and strategy put into this sequel. There are a number of ways that Golden Son triumphs over Red Rising, that I kind of regret giving Red Rising 5 stars in the first place, because I can't give a higher one to its sequel.

This review is spoiler-free. But feel free to skim if you haven't read the first book! 

Just keep in mind that Red Rising was action-packed, strategic, and you should check it out! My review of it is here.

So, in this second book, we follow Darrow as he becomes the son of the Arch-Emperor. I thought that the beginning of the book was slightly boring, because of the angst and lack of motivation from Darrow. The first part was him about to give up! IT WAS HORRIBLE. This is not the Darrow I know!

But thankfully he comes back to his senses, and there's this whole civil war brewing between the Golds, because of a plot against the Arch-Emperor. Of course, Darrow plays this well and uses it to his advantage, causing a full out invasion and recapture of Mars. Although I kind of skimmed most of the big battle because I had no idea what was going on, I could still understand the general idea what was happening.

One of the worst part of the book, however, was seeing friends slip away from Darrow, and either betray him, or die. THIS HAS GIVEN ME TRUST ISSUES. His friends suck, Golds suck, power is the only motivation here, and it's really sad to see. Let me get one thing straight. This book is incredibly intense, and you will not leave unscathed by it.

HAHA HAVE I MENTIONED THE WORST PART YET? IN WHICH MY FEELS TOTALLY COLLAPSE UPON THEMSELVES AND IMPLODE?

Well, it's the ending. I just can't believe that happened. Nope. I was prepared and I still was really sad and distressed and I am just not okay. No. Not okay.

I even had a dream where the ending was completely different and better things happened but then I woke up and it wasn't the case.

Overall, Golden Son met all my expectations. Even though the first part was hard to get into, the remaining made up for it BECAUSE WAR. I'm also really glad this was not a repeat of the first book. There is a completely different setting, additional characters, and also more character development. Sure, my feelings are in shatters. I cannot function anymore. I even read and finished another book to get over this but I can't. BUT I REGRET NOTHING. I experienced 100x more feels from Golden Son than Red Rising, and I am not recovering from it. I need the third book now.