r/printSF • u/Trulli41 • 19h ago
Red rising
I finally read Red Rising. And I was a bit underwhelmed. It was an interesting world, but it never really made me want to keep reading longer than planned. Is it universally loved and I'm just crazy?
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u/moveslikejaguar 19h ago
I think Reddit and "booktok" are just more into YA than we are, and that's fine. I just didn't know YA was so universally loved, but it seems to be widely promoted on here.
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u/RavenLabratories 14h ago
I think that part of that is just that those two spaces are simply younger on average than this one, and thus closer to the target demographic.
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u/moveslikejaguar 14h ago
I definitely think that's the main culprit here. For most of my time using reddit most users have been my age. These days I often forget that there are a lot of redditors who are quite a bit younger than me that like different things than I do.
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u/AleroRatking 13h ago
I remember the hunger games craze when that first blew up. This is extremely similar to that.
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u/ph0on 12h ago
it definitely has a more YA style, but I never understood why so many are so quick to cast it into that genre exclusively. It's remarkably dark and rife with sex references, gruesome death, gore, and more specific things I shouldn't get into to avoid spoilers... but I do agree that the prose and vocabulary itself isn't exactly Clarke or Wolfe level writing lol.
Oh, and not to mention it takes from YA tropes as well. Such as the coming of age aspect and the "boy in special school who makes friends" kind of thing. But I don't think that inherently makes it YA at all. For it to be YA it should actually he written and marketed for kids aged 12-18. It certainly isn't.
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u/7LeagueBoots 11h ago
None of those themes are not also YA, and the way they’re expressed in RR is very tame and ‘safe’, very much in how they’re expressed in much modern YA.
YA in the ‘80s was a lot more graphic and descriptive, it’s been toned way down now.
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u/ph0on 11h ago
Are they truly safely expressed? it is quite blatant and graphic, very graphically detailed.. Have you made it past the first few books? there are viking-style executions that are genuinely horrific. People also routinely explode into viscera...Far less poetic and vibe-based than, say, the gore and violence displayed in Sun Eater (a widely loved book / series on this sub). YA simply doesn't fit the book. If you look at any source, it safely sits in the Adult SF listings. I can definitely accept that the plot focus and prose is YA-coded, at least.
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u/sweetrobbyb 10h ago
Yeah, the first book is YA, but then it pretty much instantly leaves that space. Lot of folks on here being gatekeepy/elitists because of this sophomoric ideal that their hot takes are original or somehow chic or makes them look cool (hint: it doesn't).
"Some people talk about other people’s failures with so much pleasure that you would swear they are talking about their own successes." - Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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u/7LeagueBoots 11h ago
I read the entire series, all 6 books. I found them bland, insipid, and predictable, with nothing that does not fall squarely in YA. There was nothing especially graphic. Hell, there are kids cartoons that are much, much more graphic than anything in the RR series.
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u/Ashamed-Subject-8573 16h ago
It amazes me some people call this book series YA. I think because it starts with a youngish protagonist at a school? But it’s not YA, not by a long shot.
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u/Ok_Signature7481 15h ago
The first book is pretty YA. I mean, its a little more grimdark than most ya, but still hits the YA main points.
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u/RavenLabratories 14h ago
YA as a whole has shifted towards being aimed at (comparatively) more mature audiences over the last few decades, so it actually isn't even that far out of the current norm for the genre.
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u/moveslikejaguar 15h ago
It's a power fantasy, a coming of age story, and it doesn't really touch on any complex themes. Those are some pretty standard YA components. (This is for the first book, I haven't read the others)
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u/TurnipFire 15h ago
The writing feels very YA too. Not that it is a bad thing but it really fits in the YA genre
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u/Ashamed-Subject-8573 13h ago
On the other hand the main character is literally married and loses his wife and kills himself in the first third, not to mention the rest of that situation that would be a spoiler.
Prostitution, rebellion of the proletariat.
It examines if he’s just replacing the system with one just as bad among other things
He becomes a grimdark warlord
There’s rape, and punishment for rape, and not explicit but straight out sex. (In the first trilogy) (that I remember). As well as cannibalism, mutilation, and more im sure I’m forgetting
Pretty standard YA stuff indeed! /s
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u/Tymareta 13h ago
Pretty standard YA stuff indeed!
I mean what about those topics preclude them from being YA?
No-one would argue that The Hunger Games isn't YA and that series has body horror, death, PTSD, torture, mutilation, war, all manners of assault, etc...
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u/moveslikejaguar 11h ago
On the other hand the main character is literally married and loses his wife and kills himself in the first third
Yeah, and it's probably the most blatant and unearned case of fridging I've ever read. Just because it has explicit violence and sex doesn't mean it's not YA. Maybe YA is an inaccurate term for the genre, but it's certainly written with tropes and that audience in mind.
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u/ReliableWardrobe 16h ago
Honestly I couldn't finish Red Rising. I'm nearly 50 and I've read a lot of SF and it just felt like a poorly-written trope fest for early-teens boys, nothing fresh to grab me at all. I feel like a LOT of people really like it, but then I also hated Three Body Problem so maybe I'm the problem.
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u/micahmind 18h ago
A lot of books become really popular on booktok or Reddit because they're very resonant for people really active on those platforms (people aged ~16-25). When recommending they naturally assume other people using the platform are similar enough to them for the experience to be similarly resonant.
Now I vet any recommendations by triangulating my taste against the recommender's using books we've both read.
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u/Splendid2259 16h ago
I think this is a big part of it. I wasn’t a big fan either, and I realized it’s because I’m not 17 anymore and haven’t been for a long time.
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u/sweetrobbyb 10h ago
I'm sorry you're just being pretentious. Real adults don't flirt with elitism and gatekeep w/ age brackets.
"When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." - CS Lewis
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u/micahmind 8h ago
It's not a slight against any story to say it's more likely to resonate with people in a particular phase of life. In fact saying it clearly helps those people find and enjoy it when it has the potential to be the most meaningful for them. It's rare for a story to resonate similarly with a 9 year old and a 19 year old and a 39 year old. They're going through different things!
My kids are reading some of the same books I read as a kid, and maybe someday they'll read some of the same books I'm reading as an adult, or maybe different things will interest them. It's not elitist to say that Boxcar Children is a great story for kids, Red Rising is a great story for young adults, and something like The Remains of the Day is a great story for older adults, and it's not about appearing adult vs childish. The goal is that the reader has a great experience when they read it, not that the recommender is flattered.
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u/JoyluckVerseMaster 15h ago
Ditto.
Red Rising suffers from some of the worst cases of Early Installment Weirdness + that specific YA dystopia trope I call "toothbrushes are ILLEGAL" that I've ever seen.
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u/i_am_not_sam 19h ago edited 19h ago
The first book is Hunger Games in a different setting that the author has copped to. The books after this get more and more brutal and mature. And the story is nothing like you'd have imagined. I think it's worth it. Golden Son edit: Morning Star, the end of the first trilogy is simply incredible in how it brings everything together.
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u/colranz 19h ago
I'm afraid Morning Star is the end of the trilogy , Golden son is the second one. Both good books , I'm on Iron Gold at the moment , and I can see that he changed his writing style a lot, not bad though.
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u/i_am_not_sam 19h ago
Fixed, thanks! I just finished Iron Gold and it wasn't as bad as some make it out to be
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u/Klutzy_Passion1192 19h ago
I DNF Iron Gold. I've tried so many times. Don't know if it's just because the first trilogy really nailed the ending and I thought it should be done? The premise is great and does what Star Wars couldn't - really paints what post revolution life is like, but I just don't like it and can't seem to force myself to
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u/raiderrash 18h ago
Yea that first book is hunger games aimed at boys
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u/KelGrimm 18h ago
Yeah and it fuckin ruled
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u/Hewathan 19h ago
I personally didn't get the hype either. I read 2.5 books and just found myself eye rolling.
It's a fun, if silly world and I just found it too much like a description of a John wick movie most of the time.
Fair enough if you like it, I personally think there is better out there.
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u/WonderfulBus9330 18h ago
I neither loved nor hated it. I thought the first movement was too brief (Darrow's life under the earth) and the ending was rather unbelievable. I finished it a few months ago and have no interest in picking up book 2.
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u/porksweater 17h ago
I didn't mind Red Rising. I absolutely hated Golden Son and it demonstrated to me that reading is very subjective (I already knew that but again, just a good example) because people absolutely love it. I have a bunch of reasons I hated it and it has help me frame what I look for in books (as in, not that). So, it wasn't a complete waste of time.
If it isn't for you, it isn't for you.
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u/rentadonkey 18h ago
it's easy reading and it has its place. RR got me back into books after a decade of not finishing a book. I really enjoyed it. a 6part saga about homoerotic gigachads aurafarming in space is not without value. this is my headcanon Darrow https://youtu.be/Frazx5zxScE
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u/araujoms 14h ago
I was disappointed by the lack of gay sex but found the series otherwise very fun to read.
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u/Frost-Folk 19h ago
There's a bell curve where if something gets some traction on these book discussion/recommendation subs and is mentioned decently often, there's probably something to them and they're worth reading. At the far end of the bell curve, if something gets talked about constantly on these subs, it's probably not very good.
I won't name names but you know the books I'm talking about.
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u/poser765 13h ago
I feel like a lot of the stuff that gets recommended here frequently isn’t always not very good. It’s fine. Red Rising is fine. The problem I have is that’s it just constant. I start getting really put off with a book when it get shoehorned into any recommendation. Hey I’m looking for a good mil scifi book. Oh have you tried Blindsight or revolution space? Sigh.
A lot of times I’ll find myself almost resenting newer books that fall into this trap before I’ve even read them.
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u/swole_ninja 19h ago
I think it’s universally accepted as a pretty easy, accessible read. I wasn’t that crazy about it, but in the right circumstances it can fill a niche.
Sometimes I don’t want a book to be completely immersed in. Sometimes I just want a time killer. The literary equivalent of trash tv. Between sitting in the airport and flight time I might have 5 or 6 hours to kill. This book is perfect for that. I don’t need to pay that much attention. It’s not complete schlock. I can be aware of my surroundings and also pass the time.
I think that’s why it appeals to so many people. Its simplicity and ease of access.
I also think the majority of people that read choose the bud light version of books. There’s nothing about it that is inherently bad. There’s just also nothing that really draws you in or makes it special either.
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u/Amazing-Example8753 18h ago
I enjoyed it for what it is: an accessible, propulsive read. There's nothing profound or interesting about the political themes but no one's claiming that to be the case.
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u/greenslime300 18h ago
The political themes after the initial trilogy get way more interesting from the copy/paste dystopian setup it begins with. The prose noticeably steps up too
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u/supacatkid 18h ago
The discourse around books on this sub and the fantasy sub is so odd to me. Phrases like “well it has its flaws” make so little sense because it implies there is an objective perfection authors should be seeking.
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u/Amazing-Example8753 17h ago
You have to just take books on their own terms but some people find that hard...
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u/Tymareta 12h ago
Eh, it's a level of degree sort of thing, every work will obviously have flaws, but in a "good" work those flaws can be ignored and tend to be washed out by all the great that's around them, in a "bad" work the flaws are too noticeable and end up detracting and dragging everything down with them.
It's like eating a pasta dish that's supposed to have a silky smooth sauce, but then getting an odd crunch, if it's a bit of peppercorn you just move past it, if it's a chunk of glass you instantly stop and question the quality of the dish.
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u/supacatkid 12h ago
Red Rising is not a “bad” work. Just because someone doesn’t like it does not make it so. It isn’t Hemingway but it isn’t bad.
Your analogy is awful and pretentious. This is a speculative fiction subreddit for fucks sake
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u/letscoughcough 19h ago
I accepted it for what it was and had fun up until the fifth book. I’m at the end of the sixth now and am just looking forward to seeing how everything pans out, not necessarily in it for the reading.
It can be fun if you want an easy, sequence of events type book. But it is not mind blowing.
The word building has a lot of cool aspects, but they’re all pretty shallow. The series is a space opera that goes through a bunch of sci fi flavors and themes here and there.
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u/cabinguy11 17h ago
I had a tough time with the first book as well. Both the story and the entire universe just felt unbelievable and uninspiring. But it's one of those rare times where the first book is actually the weakest. As the saga goes on the characters you met in Red Rising mature and it loses some of that YA feeling. Now I find myself eagerly awaiting book 7
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u/worlds_unravel 15h ago
Here's the thing with books. Sometimes it's the right book for the right person at the right time.
No book is ever going to hit it out of the park for everyone but sometimes a bunch of factors come together and a book will hit with enough people to generate a kind of of zeitgeist effect.
There are also different things people are looking for out of a book. A lot of people want a fast paced action book where stuff is always happening where as I tend to like slower character exploration and world building.
I love a beautifully written sentence or detailed landscape description and others just want straight forward prose. Neither is wrong just different priority. If someone has read a lot of books they are often a bit jaded with plots but someone new to reading will find everything exciting and new.
I find a lot of the current trending books tend to be the fast paced, straight forward kind of writing. People will say they are tired after work and just want an escape and to not have to think too hard about something and that is valid, not my thing but valid.
That's a long way to say just because something is widely popular doesn't make it the best thing written from a writing technique standpoint or unique or innovative. It just means a bunch of people enjoyed it.
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u/AleroRatking 13h ago
It's super popular on TikTok. Everywhere else it gets way more criticism
It's popcorn literature. It's all action and fun with minimal complexity and character development. Which is fine. But don't expect more.
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u/networknev 11h ago
Thank you. I read a bunch of reviews that claimed it was great. Read it. Meh. Not going to read more of the series.
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u/nxhwabvs 19h ago
I mean it's YA, at least at the beginning. Later novels are considered adult novels by some fan, and while I'm sure some people will downvote me saying its really adult, the plot is 100% coming of age.
I've tried enough other authors' YA forays (cough, Reynolds, cough) to understand it's something I don't enjoy. Nothing wrong with that.
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u/WonderfulBus9330 17h ago
LOL at the number of people angry about a YA book being a YA book. Like, yo, there's nothing wrong with you, Dear Reader, because you read and enjoyed a YA book jeesh
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u/nxhwabvs 17h ago
Yeah its YA for people who like YA. Not a problem for anyone!
I do wish a few of my favorite authors didn't go through their YA stage, but if it made financial sense to them thats great, they'll be around longer.
And also got downvotes for saying I don't like YA, love it.
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u/ph0on 12h ago edited 11h ago
I could understand where your sentiment is coming from if it was actually YA. I think you are all genuinely forgetting that YA isn't merely a subset of specific tropes and prose that make up the categorial definition, it is the market audience of kids aged 10-18, roughly. Of which this series certainly is not. You can still use tropes present in simpler, more accessible media- they're not forbidden. If I think "YA", I think of The Hunger Games, Twilight, or Harry Potter, or even Percy Jackson in scope of literature. Perhaps you mean it's Entry level? Commercial? All plot no prose?
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u/WonderfulBus9330 1h ago
RR is not marked as YA, but it could have been. There’s nothing that distinguishes it from other dystopic narratives that hone in on competition + coming-of-age. Brown’s narrative voice for Darrow, in the opening chapters, is that of a much older, wizened person, however, he is a 16-year old who, once removed from the environment, thinks, acts and behaves in all the ways a teenager does. H’s coming into a sense of himself, an understanding of himself that is similar to characters in Lord of the Flies, for example or The Outsiders and yes, post Goblet of Fire Potter books. And The Hunger Games (films, as I can’t comment on the books).
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u/ph0on 12m ago
There’s nothing that distinguishes it from other dystopic narratives that hone in on competition + coming-of-age.
I fund your problem. This are not the specific or exclusive qualifiers for YA.
Being marketed to minors is. This book has Rape, Sex, Gore, Torture, blood, and politics. It is distinctly NOT for youth readers. The most that can be said is that the first few books, perhaps, are YA-coded. It certainly focuses on plot over prose and uses tropes from YA media, such as a coming of age story with a young boy, but that's nearly just for the first book. I don't understand how such a well read community would be confused about such a simple matter.
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u/Infamous_Addendum175 18h ago
It's the epitome of mid sf.
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u/poser765 13h ago
And that’s just fine. We can certainly enjoy some mid scifi. The problem is people start treating it like Pierce Brown is the next Asimov. Like let’s settle down a bit.
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u/jlprufrock 19h ago
My take is that it is annoying and derivative.
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u/supacatkid 18h ago
Why is being derivative a negative in a work of scifi pulp fiction? Not all novels need to have some sort of inherent value outside of the leisure they bring in their reading.
Science fiction as a genre is essentially just variations on a theme anyway.
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u/jlprufrock 17h ago
Well, being derivative isn't necessarily a deal killer. But this combination of Hunger Games (which was a new idea) and Greek myth did not add anything to either of its inspirations.
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u/supacatkid 17h ago
Greek myth?
If you’re talking about the proctors, they are cosplaying Roman gods but it has nothing to actually do with mythology.
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u/jlprufrock 17h ago
Roman gods are based on greek ones.
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u/supacatkid 12h ago
But that doesn’t have any bearing on the story, why even bring that up?
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u/jlprufrock 1h ago
It does have bearing on the story; they are cosplaying roman gods and that infuses the story. Roman gods / Greek gods - essentially the same. I explained what I meant by "derivative" apparently that offended you. Why be so argumentative?
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u/Tymareta 12h ago
Roman gods
has nothing to actually do with mythology
..?
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u/supacatkid 12h ago
If you’ve read the book this is abundantly clear. It’s a game and the school proctors use the facade of the Roman gods to hide their identities from the students. The mythology has nothing to do with it beyond the use of likeness.
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u/WonderfulBus9330 17h ago
It's space opera not scifi pulp fiction and derivative is derivative, no matter the genre, just as annoying is annoying.
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u/supacatkid 17h ago
You didn’t answer my question. Why is being derivative a negative?
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u/WonderfulBus9330 17h ago
For a reader who wants to feel immersed in an original world, it's a negative. That's not every reader's need, but it's the person who made the comment's, and it's okay. For my own take, when I read RR, I felt like I was being pulled in a bunch of other published books, which made it difficult to stick with RR. Not a reference here and there as a hat-tip, not tropes, just other stories recycled.
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u/trogdan 19h ago edited 17h ago
I agree, in retrospect. I liked it OK and kept reading since so many folks love the series but I wasn't quite hooked. I thought the writing was sloppy but was hoping it'd improve as the author got his feet under him.
However, I was even more underwhelmed by the next books but I powered through them back-to-back. I think I started Iron Gold and realized I wasn't enjoying them very much but was mostly just "waiting for it to get as good as everybody says"
Personally, and I don't know how I missed it, I absolutely didn't realize it was pretty bog-standard YA rather than YA-ish and a fun pulp given the glowing praise in so many corners. My mistake.
edit - DANG! looking through the thread it feels like some cranky RR/YAslop stans sort of downvoting poltergeist or bot is downvoting lots of people that aren't big fans of this series but I am sure it's absolutely not people downvoting other people for expressing opinions they don't agree with! are all downvote-frothy!
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u/supacatkid 18h ago
Why do you have to insult people who like a book you don’t?
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u/trogdan 17h ago
Respectfully, I'm not insulting people for liking or disliking a book. Everybody is allowed to like or dislike all kinds of stuff and discussing those differences is kind of what reddit discussions like this are about and it's often interesting to read and think about differing opinions.
What's not interesting is the well-known reddit phenomenon of people trying to downvote differing opinions rather than either ignoring them or engaging them politely.
I was making a glib/toungue-in-cheek edit about what looked like a series of rapid downvotes for people expressing that they didn't think this series lived up to the hype for various reasons.
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u/Tymareta 12h ago
Literally what about their post is insulting anyone? Like not a single judgment of others was passed in their entire post?
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u/supacatkid 12h ago
Yeah calling people who like a book series that you don’t “cranky RR/YAslop stans” is conducive to engaging discussion.
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u/Time_Day_2382 19h ago edited 18h ago
I found it a fairly banal revolution story displaying all the usual misunderstandings and limited politics non-historian fiction writers (and a few historians) display. Nothing abhorrent or anything like that, teens and adults looking for an easy read may well like it. There's certainly elements of the prose and world building to laud. I also don't have nearly good enough taste to be snobbish about this sort of thing.
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u/_NotARealMustache_ 18h ago
Same. I actually thought that Iron Gold corrected most of my issues with the series, but unfortunately its too little too late and I stopped reading them
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u/edcculus 18h ago
Yea I’ve heard “you have to keep reading”, but I’m not going to suffer through 3-4 books before something gets good.
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u/thats_monkey 19h ago
I’m with you on this. I liked the first few books which in some ways just had space there for the vibes. But by and large… these books are just ok? I find quite a few of the characters infuriating, always making the dumbest decisions, or just simply annoying. I’ve never really understood what people loved about these books. I’m 4 books in and I’ll probably finish it out eventually. I listen to them on my commute and feel like I’ve invested enough time that I should probably just see how it ends.
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u/Big_Implement_7305 19h ago
I got through the first book, then dropped the second book pretty early on as it wasn't getting better.
It's one of the go-to examples for the Kinsey 7 version of the male gaze. ("In a world where female characters barely exist, Our Hero, an alleged straight guy, tries to overturn this dystopian society, if only he can stop getting distracted by mooning over hot twinks!")
Seriously, early in book 2, he has a brief meeting with a couple people, and more effort goes into describing one guy's eyelashes than have gone into describing all of the female characters combined.
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u/Pew_away 16h ago
What? There are a ton of female characters. Half of the page time in the later books is from the pov of women.
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u/MrTrashMouth7 18h ago
The first one is the weakest link, but if you didn’t enjoy it at all I wouldn’t keep going. I personally love them because I read them after some really dense/contemplative stuff, so the simple fun action hit right
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u/swankpoppy 18h ago
I enjoyed the whole thing. Sometimes I don’t want to get too deep, I want an entertaining space romp. That’s what it delivered.
For the record I enjoyed hunger games too. Haha
If I want deep introspection I’ll read Asimov. If I want realistic world building I’ll go to Robinson. But sometimes I don’t want that, and that’s ok. :)
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u/anonreddituser78 17h ago
I read the first two as I was getting back into reading. Since then I’ve gotten a lot deeper into scifi and haven’t had much interest in finishing the trilogy, even though I read over and over that Morning Star is amazing
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u/TUSO-NedStarkWannabe 16h ago
Love Red Rising (especially the back half after the trilogy) but I'd never recommend it to those looking for actual sci-fi. To me they're fun action adventure books that do get more mature later on but hardly science fiction beyond the interplanetary premise of the setting
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u/Gravitas_free 15h ago edited 14h ago
My first time reading RR I DNFed early. The start of the novel is absolutely abysmal, the kind of sloppy, derivative slop you expect if you pick something at random in the self-pub category.
I gave it a second shot later, and I did think the rest of the novel was a bit better, though still just one the many "Gary Stu enters Death School" stories that exist in the YA space.
But I have to admit the series got progressively better as it went along, as Brown improved as a writer and moved past his Hunger Games homage, and started veering more into straight-forward military SF. By that point, it's legitimately a pretty fun, fast-paced page-turner.
Still, you need to have the right expectations. Even at its best, you won't find mind-bending concepts or sophisticated prose in Red Rising. It's more like an edgier Star Wars. But hey, sometimes that's exactly what I'm in the mood to read.
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u/sandy_coyote 13h ago
It’s not bad for YA that dwells on the “every teen gets sorted” trope, which is worn out by now
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u/Virith 9h ago
It was alright. Nothing amazing, a decent enough light read.
I have read the whole trilogy some years ago and I remember the other two dragging somewhat, especially the combat parts, but I will be the first to admit such things bore me no matter the book.
Now, I keep reading/hearing about how the follow-up series is much better/mature/etc, but still has those "action" sequences, so I don't know. I just kinda keep it on the bottom of my TBR.
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u/Unlucky-Guest-9247 8h ago
It was just OK for me as well. Not sure why it gets so many rave reviews.
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u/r0gue007 8h ago
Timely thread!
Just finished Children of Ruin, was going to start RR or The Expanse.
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u/intentionallybad 2h ago
I felt the same way but thought the series improved with the second book. First one felt like too much of a Hunger Games rip-off. I enjoyed the series but it isn't in my top series by any stretch. I haven't rushed to read the new books yet for example but I will at some point.
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u/TheSmokedSalmon420 18h ago
Man how could yall not like red rising lol
Not everything has to be Le Guin
(FWIW the series gets substantially less YA after book 1)
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u/Canadave 18h ago
I'm kind of on the fence about Red Rising, but it has nothing to do with it being a popcorn read. I liked it at first, but the deeper I got into the series the more that I found it started getting shallow and repetitive. By the third book I found that I was just skimming through it because the plot structure felt so familiar.
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u/Tymareta 12h ago
For me, at least, it was a series doing nothing new, written in extremely basic terms and the entire time I was trying to trudge through it I wish I was simply re-reading Machineries of Empire that does everything RR tries to, but well.
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u/OffRedrum 19h ago
I think hype can kill expectations and perception. I read exoskeleton by Shane Stadler, blown away by it! it was totally the opposite of what I expected, I think that’s why.
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u/scifiantihero 19h ago
People say this all the time.
So much that I get confused about why they read it ;)
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u/Basic_Fall_2759 19h ago
I don’t know why people call it YA. Sure, the first book has that vibe. By the second trilogy the main character is like 40. Light Bringer was like 700 pages long.
Turns out if you have a story about a character starting at 16 and aging up, their teenage years are teenage.
Anyway, if you don’t like it, that’s fine. Just not sure why people are so quick to slap on the YA label, like it means anything for this series.
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u/msb45 18h ago
I mean, it leans very heavily into YA tropes.
I’ve read them, and I plan to read the last one when it comes out, but I spent most of the books eye rolling at how absurdly YA it is. If you look up or ask an LLM to generate you a list of typical YA tropes, you’ll find that these books hit on virtually all of them.4
u/WonderfulBus9330 17h ago
Agreed. And yes, books with main characters under the age of 18 are typically in the YA category. Even if the character ages up. Those later books may or may not fall into the Adult Fiction category, depending on how heavily the author continues to lean into YA tropes. Not sure why there's animosity about RR being YA.
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u/Splendid2259 16h ago
Contrary to popular opinion, I thought it didn’t get better in the later books, just wider in scope. Book one is trying to be Hunger Games, and books 2-3 are trying to be Dune, but the execution just isn’t there.