Often I find myself walking around a Barnes & Noble for an hour picking up random books that catch my eye. I’ll read the back of each book to see if I want to read them and I usually end up with 3-5 books every visit. This is how I found Red Rising by Pierce Brown. The red wing on the cover caught my eye so I picked it up and turned to the back of the book to see it was reviewed as a mix between Game of Thrones and Hungry Games. I’m not gunna lie, once I saw Game of Thrones on it the book was bought already but then I opened the cover to read the description and I had to have it. Red Rising is about a boy named Darrow who lives in an underground community on Mars. Darrow and his family are called Reds and they mine the depths of Mars to help terraform (make livable essentially) the surface for the rest of society to live there. Darrow finds out that his people have unknowingly been living as slaves for hundreds of years and the rest of society has already been living on the surface. Darrow then decides to rebel against the rest of the society. Now, I enjoy most dystopian novels and have read most of the Young Adult novels that everyone has heard about (like The Hunger Games) but Pierce Brown’s series is a cut above them all. From the first page of Red Rising you get hooked. The customs of the mines where Darrow lives are just plain brutal and Pierce Brown brilliantly weaves the setting to the point where you feel as if you’ve been living with the Reds for your whole life. The events that take part in the mines completely surprised me because it seems as if the story will unfold similarly to other dystopian books but it swerves in different directions. Once Darrow begins on his rebellion, Brown effortlessly increases the size of his world, from a small mine to vast space, as Darrow discovers more and more. You never want to leave the Red Rising universe once you’ve immersed yourself in it. I still use words that Brown created in my everyday speech! Although the world is amazing, the thing that sets Red Rising apart for me is the characters, particularly Darrow. The growth that Darrow goes through adds so many depths to his character it is astounding. He doesn’t start out as someone who knows what to do in every situation like other books and main characters. Darrow learns with every impossible situation, sometimes making the right decision but a lot of the time making the wrong one. He is not perfect which in turn makes him perfect. Throughout Red Rising and the rest of the Red Rising series, Darrow consistently battles with the ramifications of his choices because there is no easy route. He is one of my favorite characters I have ever had the pleasure of reading about. One of the characters is the coolest character ever written so just prepare for it (you’ll know who I’m talking about when you read it). If you want to be fully lost in a world that keeps you in it’s grasps long after you’ve put down the book, then Red Rising is the book for you. This whole series is amazing so hurry up and read it, I promise you’ll love it!