Iron Gold Review

Iron Gold by Pierce Brown! Was this my least favorite Red Rising novel??? 🤔 (If you haven’t read the first three Red Rising books, you should read them before this review!)

Well, with any other Pierce Brown book, the rule is expect the worst. Always. It becomes a habit to expect everything to unravel or not go as planned. Sometimes that’s true, sometimes not, and when it’s not I’m always relieved.

Iron Gold picks up ten years after the end of Morning Star, a solar war raging and three new POVs introduced. This is my least favorite part of the book. Brown leaves you hanging at the end of one chapter, only to switch to a new POV in the next. While it keeps the suspense high, I found myself losing interest in the characters by the time their narratives circled back. Limiting the POVs to two might have enhanced the storytelling, especially since some characters’ arcs intertwine.

Another… complaint maybe? I felt Iron Gold to be kind of pointless. Throughout the first three books the theme and point was strong; get out of under Gold’s foot… but Iron Gold doesn’t give that same vibe or satisfaction after reading. Of course the goal is to end the war, but it felt like every character was exhausted, both physically and metaphorically. Perhaps that was Brown’s intention.

Despite my reservations, the prose and pacing, for the most part, maintain the high standard set by the earlier books. My favorite characters were Lyria (towards the end) and Lysander and can’t wait to see more of them (I’m writing this while already a few hundred pages into Dark Age… 😭). I of course will continue the Red Rising saga and hope that the coming books improve a lot. My final score for Iron Gold by Pierce Brown is 6/10 🥑

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