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Review: Golden Son by Pierce Brown

Summary

Golden Son continues the stunning saga of Darrow, a rebel forged by tragedy, battling to lead his oppressed people to freedom from the overlords of a brutal elitist future built on lies. Now fully embedded among the Gold ruling class, Darrow continues his work to bring down Society from within.

My thoughts

What the hell, Pierce Brown? WHAT.THE.ACTUAL.HELL!? How can you do this to your readers? HOW IS THIS EVEN LEGAL? No one should be allowed to end a book like Pierce Brown ended Golden Son!
That ending ruined me and my feels are still all over the place so I don’t think I’ll be able to write a decent review but I’m going to try anyway.

Golden Son was an insane roller coaster ride of a book. Right on the very first page it dives into action packed territory and never leaves for a single page. I thought we would get to read some form of introduction, some slower chapters at the start but NOPE! Pierce Brown just skips a couple of months and brings us right to the thrilling part. Only a few chapters in and the body count is already higher than the number of pages read. It’s madness!

If you are like me, then better read this book at home in private. I sat there open-mouthed, chin crashed to the floor, shocked into stunned silence throughout the whole book. It wasn’t only shock though but also pure fascination. This war in space is so bloody exciting I couldn’t get enough of it.

When I started the book I needed a few pages until I was back in full swing and knew who was who again but once I was all set, I remembered again why I loved these characters so much. People are dying left and right and you don’t know how to cope with the fear of loosing one of your favorites. But even though the whole situation seems so damn hopeless, these characters were still able to crack me up. I really needed that.
Pierce Brown’s characters are so well done and the character development is great. Even though these teenagers are everything but normal, it’s still realistic how they feel, how they cope and deal with certain things. Especially Darrow, who sometimes seems short of giving up because he just can’t take it anymore was relatable on so many levels.
It drove me nuts that you just can’t tell who he can trust, who is a real friend and who he can’t trust. I wanted so bad for him to have a couple of friends he can confide in. Sometimes I thought it pained me even more than him.

As I already mentioned, this book ends in an awful last chapter. Awful as in everything is in ruins, there is no hope left in me that anything could someday be alright again and ice cold fear of the last book. He might just have killed every single character and it wouldn’t have been much different. Actually, that would have been better and less painful because at least I would know that it can’t get any worse.

If you liked the first book, I’m pretty sure you’re going to like this one even more. It doesn’t have this feel of two disconnected parts but is rather one epic tale set in space. I do think though that there might be people who’ll enjoy this one less because this is 90% action and when you take a look at the overall plot, it doesn’t move forward as much. Nevertheless, I liked exactly that. No one can say that this is a boring sequel were nothing happens. The plot does move forward and a lot of important things happen. I have absolutely no idea what’s going to come next and how Pierce Brown will wrap this up in a nice ending. I rather fear he is just going to kill every character instead. No matter what the third book going to be like, I’m dying to read it.

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  • Sounds like an amazing read! I haven’t heard of this series yet, but after reading your review, I’ll definitely be checking it out. But it might be a while since I’ll read this because as you said, it’s filled with adventure and action and no breaks in between and while that’s generally something I love very much in a book, I’ve recently just finished Dreams of Gods & Monsters and I kind of need a break from all the heavy books. Great review :)

  • I finished reading Red Rising today and I am so so in love with it. And now I am official scared to read Golden Son. I think I might wait until we are closer to the release of Morning Star.

  • Das klingt ja unglaublich grandios!!! Okay, ein wenig skeptisch bin ich schon, ob die Handlung nicht etwas stagniert, aber besser viel Action als ein langweiliges Zerreden.
    Du hast mich jetzt wirklich für Teil 2 begeistern können, ich fand Teil 1 schon sehr gut und kann es nun kaum noch erwarten, die Fortsetzung zu lesen. Auch wenn ich nun etwas Angst vor dem Ende habe…

  • Ich hab gerade den ersten Band beendet und würde am liebsten direkt weiterlesen, blöderweise liefern die Band 2 jetzt erst Ende des Monats… :/

    Ich freu mich aber jetzt schon irgendwie auf den Cliffhanger, auch wenn das Warten auf den dritten Teil dann bestimmt unerträglich wird :D

  • Ohhh Crini, das hört sich SO gut an! Am liebsten würde ich jetzt wieder sofort zuschlagen, aber ich wollte doch auf die deutsche Version warten und an meinem SuB arbeiten. Aber es hört sich SO gut an! Noch spannender. Das wäre der Hammer. Hach, mal sehen ob ich es schaffe noch abzuwarten :)

    Liebe Grüße,
    Tina

Jan 05, 2015