Emily May's Reviews > Golden Son

“I will die. You will die. We will all die and the universe will carry on without care. All that we have is that shout into the wind - how we live. How we go. And how we stand before we fall.”

I *almost* didn't write a review for Golden Son. It doesn't matter how many reviews I write or how snarky I've been in the past, there is something extremely intimidating about writing a negative review for a book that all my friends loved, that critics praised, and that has an average Goodreads rating of 4.49. I spent some time actually trying to come up with what was wrong with me as a way of explanation.

It must be me, right? I must not have appreciated it right. It must be the wrong time. I must be hormonal. Because I just DO NOT GET IT. In the last week alone, I've had multiple requests from people telling me to continue with this series, calling it "one of the best series ever", and saying Golden Son is so much better than Red Rising.

Is it?

Because I struggle to see the leap between the two. So many reviewers have acknowledged that Darrow was the very definition of a Gary Stu in Red Rising, and yet many are now citing his epic failure at the start of this book as evidence of him shedding the Gary Stu-ness. But I just don't buy it. Even when he fails, he fails like a damn hero with fireworks going off behind his head, rushing back to rescue a damsel in distress in true, self-sacrificing perfection.

Even when he fails, he doesn't fail.
Even when things are awful, he has to deliver a melodramatic, rousing speech.

Darrow is possibly the most self-obsessed character caricature I have ever come across. He loves to hear himself speak - or think, as it may be.

There's a word - arch - that's used in various contexts, but is often used in theatre and acting as an example of how not to act. It refers to delivering lines while mentally side-eying the audience with a visible self-awareness of the part you are playing and what comes next. For example, playing out a dramatic scene with visible knowledge of your next line. Darrow feels like that. I feel like he is reading off a script. Every dramatic speech and inner monologue does not feel like someone making a realistically important speech in the face of death, it feels like a bad actor dramatically wiping his brow, doing a Sally Field lip bite, and launching into his lines.

He's not really scared because duh, he's playing Darrow, he knows he can't fail in the end.

Not only is he an epic drama llama, but he is still the voice of insufferably good and just morality. On one side, he has the Sons of Ares willing to go to extreme terrorist lengths for their cause, and on the other side he has many cold, callous Golds who DNGAF about the lower classes. Many times it feels like Darrow is the only one allowed to care about anything and allowed to be upset about the deaths of innocents.

Even the most interesting character (by far) feels so unnatural and out of place in the story. Everyone is saluting Mustang as this amazing, strong female who completely overwrites the issues the last book introduced (i.e. all female characters are useless and need saving) and yet she does indeed feel like a direct response to readers' concerns. Her most memorable scene is a feminist speech she makes about being super smart and unapologetic and I can't help thinking... Brown is going for the female vote. Because we all know how much he loves to milk that.

And, in a sea of books about civil unrest and divides between ruling/slave classes, I think the only way the Red Rising trilogy stands out is by its heavier use of scientific language and technical descriptions. I don't feel like it does anything different in terms of plot or characters.

I lack the ability to care what will happen going forward. I feel like there is literally nothing I’m reading for… I don’t care how the war ends, I don’t care if Darrow lives or dies, I don’t care about any relationships. There are just no answers I’m seeking from this series. Which is why I won't be reading Morning Star, no matter how many people tell me I should.

Seriously, though, who talks like this (note: this isn't Darrow):

“… I was in a dark woods, blind and lost as Dante before Virgil. But Quinn helped me. Her voice calling me out of misery. She became my home. As she puts it, “Home isn’t where you’re from, it’s where you find light when all grows dark.”

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