Monday, 7 December 2015

Golden Son by Pierce Brown - Reviewed by Jonah Deutsch

Golden Son is the second book in the series Red Rising. It is written by Pierce Brown and is a fictional book.

The main character, Darrow goes to the trains at the Academy (a place where apprentices train for war), duels his nemesis Cassius and rescues his house from being massacred in the middle of the night. He also wins a battle against the Sovereign, finds out who Ares is and even in the end has his biggest secret revealed.

The biggest theme the book is based around is Character versus Society. Darrow, his friend’s, his leader and his army fight the Sovereign, her army and her hunger to become not only a ceremonial head of the Solar System, but to be an Empress or ruler. You will always be cheering for Darrow to overcome the Society and its meaningless rules and jobs and worst of all colours. What happens in the book is actually a great representation of two particular things I had in mind that happened in real life? One was during a period of time and the other is a quote. Here is the quote: “Don’t judge a book by its cover”- Murder in the Glass Room – Edwin Rolfe and Lester Fuller. The period of time was during the 20th century. Segregation. During the 20th century, many people tried to stop segregation. Jackie Robinson, Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King Jr. The thing is that, people can not decide their race or colour. What they can decide is how they act toward themselves and others. The colours (gold at the top with silver to red and pink at the bottom being the servants) influenced the Society in the same way. People were judged by how they were born, not how they acted, and sadly, that is just completely and totally wrong.

I think the thing that the author does best is being biased. The reason I say this is because, usually, we think of being biased a bad thing. The weird part is though is that being biased is not always bad. The author is biased by being on Darrow’s side too much. Making everyone see the Sovereign, Octavia au Lune, as bad to the readers as possible. What he does is he makes love Darrow and his background and where he comes from and his cause so that everyone wants to see Darrow succeed that they just keep reading to see what happens, hoping that the Sovereign, or one of her close advisors gets killed on the next page. Making it so that you keep reading until you find the cliff hanging edge which I have read countless times. Never have I accepted that end and I can tell you, nor will you.


Overall, I believe that Pierce Brown wrote a fantastic book which really showed the real world in it. For the first time, I have really seen fiction collide with non-fiction. And hopefully, you do to.
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6 comments:

  1. Anonymous9 December 2015 at 17:52

    Dear Jonah,

    Golden Son seems like a very interesting novel. I was wondering what emotions you had when you were reading the book? Were the emotions you had at the beginning of the novel different then the ones at the end? If so, how?

    Thanks
    - Armita

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  2. Anonymous14 December 2015 at 08:25

    Dear Jonah, You mentioned that the biggest conflict is character vs society. Could you please describe this society for me and why its such a big conflict?
    Thank You, Emma

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous15 December 2015 at 09:42

      Dear Emma,
      The society has a ceremonial head by the name of Octavia au Lune. They want her to not only be ceremonial but make her an Empress and take over the entire society.

      Jonah

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  3. Anonymous15 December 2015 at 09:43

    Dear Jonah,

    I understand that the author focuses a lot on Darrow throughout the book. I was wondering if you could tell me about him? Could you please tell me about his age, appearance, background (his life before the beginning of the book) and about him as a person.

    Thanks,
    Olivia

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous15 December 2015 at 09:54

      Dear Olivia,

      I am unsure of his age. He is tall, big and strong thanks to his surgery. What I mean is that Darrow is from a Red (slave) background. A terrorist group named the Sons of Ares wanted him to undergo surgery so that he could become Gold (leader) and destroy the society from the inside.

      Jonah

      Delete
  4. Unknown15 December 2015 at 13:44

    Dear Jonah,

    Your first paragraph was a lot of information for someone who's never read the book before, you introduced Darrow, his rival, leaving no detail of the both of them, or they're relationship, such as, you could say the maple leafs and ottawa sectors are rivals, but you can also say that Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker are rivals, there's a pretty big difference in the type of rivalry there. What are they rivals in?You also say that he saves his "house" from being massacred in the middle of the night. A house as in the object cannot be killed, or massacred. What type of house are you talking about, houses as in our Hobbits and Dragons, etc, or something else?

    Sincerely, Connor

    ReplyDelete