My thoughts of the book as told by Dean Winchester (and occasionally Sam Winchester)
4.5 out of 5 stars
This may have been the darkest book I've read to date. Not that's particularly a bad thing... but I was not prepared for this one. It took a toll on me. Physically, mentally and emotionally. I thought Red Rising was bad, but I had no idea what I was in for when delved into this one. It was too much for me.
Especially that bloodydamn ending!
In Red Rising, we left Darrow swearing his allegiance to ArchGovernor Augustus. Here, we find Darrow at the Academy at the start of Golden Son, where he's training in all aspects of war, ground and space warfare. I don't think he got to cover the naval warfare part of his education. He might have gotten to it had he not let his pride get the best of him when he went against Karnus au Bellona in some test. But that's a good thing because one of the issues I had with Red Rising was that Darrow was too good at everything. That definitely changed. Also, Mustang's character has developed, I guess it was the aging. In Red Rising, I felt that Mustang was so dependent and reliant on others that couldn't quite fend for herself. I didn't really think that would change, but boy was I wrong. In this one, she's strong, independent and bold. On of my favorite things about her is that she doesn't give a rat's ass about what anyone thinks, even her father.
One problem I
did have with this book though was the writing. Don't get me wrong, Pierce's storytelling is Peerless (see what I did there?). But, it wasn't so much the structure that threw me off as it was some of the scene setups. I couldn't quite visualize some of the surroundings and characters. Take Ragnar for example, right now I don't have a set picture of him in my mind. I've had trouble with this throughout the book. In fact, I'm not the only one. I read some reviews on Goodreads to see if anyone had a similar experience, and found that a few people did. (If I were the only one I wouldn't have mentioned it).
