Red Rising, by Pierce Brown
I needed something to do on a cross-country flight and a friend suggested this book once she confirmed I liked both Ender’s game and the Hunger Games. I listened to the first 33 chapters over the last month and just sat down and finished the book in an about 2 hour push. If you like Ender’s game or the Hunger Games, I think this book will suit your tastes as well. I won’t give any spoilers but I’ll summarize the book. It is about a boy born on Mars in a slave caste. It read like a near-future story, though the exact date is not certain early in the book. The book is similar to both Ender’s Game and the Hunger games in that it has an adolescent hero put into a scenario that has much larger implications. The pacing is good, the world Brown creates is very rich. It has a coarser language than the other two books, and it does seem to be aimed at a boy audience rather than a mixed gender audience. Maybe because the main character is male, but the tone seems more masculine than Ender’s game. Possibly because the main character is about 4-6 years older than Ender.
I have purchased the 2 sequels and they are queued up on my reading list. I am really looking forward to continuing this series! I’ll give it 5-stars!