601 pages
English language
Published March 7, 2018
"Ten years after the events of Morning Star, Darrow and the Rising are battling the remaining Gold loyalist forces and are closer than ever to abolishing the color-coded caste system of Society for good. But new foes will emerge from the shadows to threaten the imperfect victory Darrow and his friends have earned"--
While still a fantastic book, and understanding the need to move away from solely Darrow's perspective, I didn't enjoy it as much as the single POV.
I found this a hard book to read. The writing was excellent. Pierce Brown has improved much since his first book in the series. Like, a lot. His big pro was his storytelling. That has always been good (for me).
It's the same in this book: excellent storytelling. But it was dárk. You can see the implications and problems coming from miles away, from the first chapters in the book. You want to grab Darrow by the neck and shake some sense into him. You watch the horror unfold. Because it's horror, not drama. With horror you know that there will be no real happy ending.
This made it an extremely depressing book to read, and even more so because it's the first in a new series. There won't be any release of the tension until... at least three years on, probably more.
What makes it even more depressing is …
I found this a hard book to read. The writing was excellent. Pierce Brown has improved much since his first book in the series. Like, a lot. His big pro was his storytelling. That has always been good (for me).
It's the same in this book: excellent storytelling. But it was dárk. You can see the implications and problems coming from miles away, from the first chapters in the book. You want to grab Darrow by the neck and shake some sense into him. You watch the horror unfold. Because it's horror, not drama. With horror you know that there will be no real happy ending.
This made it an extremely depressing book to read, and even more so because it's the first in a new series. There won't be any release of the tension until... at least three years on, probably more.
What makes it even more depressing is its accuracy. I often think about those 'ever afters' in stories. What happens after the princess marries her dragon? Or after the revolution has succeeded? The 'we've won, now what'.
In the case of revolutions we see, historically speaking, that you can take the previous government out of the equasion, but you can't take the people from that old world out of it. Same people, same problems.
There's nothing as difficult as trying to rule a diverse people. How would one do it when ones people spans planets? So many old hurts, slights, and so many interests. Pierce captures that extremely well, I think.
A great addition to the saga. As in the previous 3, the writing was excellent and kept me turning pages every night until the end. Nothing cliche or typical about the characters or the plot. I found it original, compelling, and refreshing.
I finished this about a month ago on the plane home from vacay. Didn't read at all there. Only on the flights to and from. Wow! What a great book. Darker than the first three which is saying a lot. It’s left me a little down. Also, no surprise. I thoroughly enjoyed every second. Not one slow moment. POSSIBLE SPOILER I went into this without any research. I wanted to be surprised. And I was. I did not see another book coming. I’m SO excited. This is one of my favorite series and I can’t wait to see it expand.
The only reason this didn't get five stars is because I called the ending for Darrow's storyline. That seemed inevitable to me. Everything else was utterly fantastic. Is the sequel out yet?
