Title: Golden Son (Red Rising #2)
Author: Pierce Brown
Genre: YA Sci-Fi/Dystopia
Format: Audiobook
Narrated By: Tim Gerard Reynolds
Length: 19 hours, 3 minutes
Publisher: Del Rey
Publish Date: January 6, 2015
Rating:  ★  ★  ★  ★  ★ 
Recommend: BLOODYDAMN YES!
Trigger Warnings: Violence, Death, Dismemberment

First, thank you so much to Elise @ A Book and a Cup for doing this buddy read with me! I appreciate your patience while I worked my way through this. This was definitely a book that I could not rush or I would have not appreciated it enough. Stay tuned for our discussion post coming up later on this week or next week. I can’t wait for you guys to hear what Elise and I have to say – spoilers and all!

Second of all: I’m pretty sure I’m actually dead from that? This is my ghost doomed to haunt the blogosphere with my thoughts on books that I didn’t get to finish before my untimely demise from Darrow and this crew. So, enjoy.

Darrow is our main character from the beginning of this tale. For those of you who haven’t read the first book, basically Darrow is evolving from how he was in that one. He’s meaner, stronger and definitely someone that is worth paying attention to. He has been betrayed left and right and still has his main mission at heart. I feel like if Darrow were to love you, he would love you fiercely and without abandon. Sometimes he makes the wrong decision, but doesn’t everyone at some point in their lives? Nobody’s perfect, not even Darrow.

Mustang is so much more than a love interest for Darrow, honestly. Seeing her strength and strategic skill in the first one reminds me of how much I rooted for her in that one, and how much I wanted to continue to root for her in this one. We don’t see her as often as we would like, but when she’s on the pages, she is a force to pay attention to, and commands respect and attention. She’s just an amazing character and I’m curious to see what’s going to happen with her in the third book.

There are other side characters as well, some characters that were brought back from the first novel and some that didn’t have as much page time as others. Every single person is someone to pay attention to, and honestly there were times were I couldn’t tell who was loyal to Darrow or not. Maybe that will lead to Darrow’s downfall, but we shall see.

Two years after the events of Red Rising, Darrow finds himself finishing up the final battle in the Mars Institute. He finds himself being betrayed by someone who was supposed to have his back, but then again we know the politics in this world is full of conniving bitches and we can’t help but love them. There is so much drama and violence throughout this novel that one moment someone would be alive and you turn the page and they are getting their head cut off. It was intense.

There really isn’t much I can say about the plot without there being spoilers because it is a sequel, but just know that even though Darrow survived the Academy, the Institute was a whole different creature – one that we don’t get to see because we catch the tale end of it – and everything that happens afterwards is one hell of a ride. Think anarchy and rebellion.

All the violence.

But really, I loved seeing Mustang again. I loved seeing Darrow compare his wits with the Sovereign. I loved seeing some people that I never thought we would see again. I loved coming back into this world.

Also, they still have bacon in this world, and that will always be a bloodydamn plus.

All the violence.

Okay not ALL the violence, but the violence to certain people. This is one of those books that you really have to pay attention to in order to understand what’s happening and appreciate all of its nuances. So, pay attention or you’ll miss a lot.

I don’t even know how to process this right now, seriously. Like, I feel brain dead because of everything that I listened to for the past week. I’m kind of wishing that I read it so I could take notes and highlight some stuff and go back and compare. I’m going to do that from this point on though, because as much as I love Tim Gerald Reynolds, I need to be actively paying attention to Darrow and his world.