Go away, I'm reading.

Hello, everyone! I'm just going to jump into it, because that's what Pierce Brown would do.

To be perfectly honest, I bought the first book of the Red Rising Trilogy by Pierce Brown months ago. The girl at the bookstore gave it a glowing recommendation, so I picked it up without giving it too much thought. Despite this, Red Rising sat on my shelf for ages before I opened it up. I blame this on the back cover blurb. Let's just say that it was... underwhelming (and that's being generous). Regardless, I found myself waiting on a bunch of holds from the library and so I finally gave the book a shot.

Holy balls, you guys. This trilogy is amazing. Each book is super densely plotted. I can't even get into too much description here, since the first major plot point occurs about 60 pages into the first book. Also, I wouldn't want to spoil anything, because the truly insane pacing and twists and turns are what make these books so, so good. Furthermore, everything is extremely well planned. Just when you think Brown might have dropped a plot point, it comes back - usually in the most brutal and upsetting way possible (note: if violence, war, and/or death are not your things, you may not want to read these). Also, Brown has got one dark sense of humour. Luckily, so do I, so I found myself chuckling at some truly messed up stuff (e.g. pretty much anything to do with Sevro and eyeballs).

I read the entire trilogy in approximately a week and a half. During this time, I skipped meals (not advised), ignored the outside world, and nearly turned homicidal whenever someone interrupted my reading. I raved about it. I forced my friends to read it so I could have someone to talk to about it (they also loved it, by the way). And I had the worst book hangover after I finished Morning Star, because the series had literally taken over my life.

It's probably good for my health there were only three books in this series. I gave all three books 5 stars, because they truly deserve it. The fact that Red Rising are Pierce Brown's first books legitimately blows my mind. I cannot recommend these enough, and am eagerly awaiting the Iron Gold follow-up series (only 6 more months until 2017!).