A review by mimimilaa
Golden Son by Pierce Brown

5.0

warning: may contain unwanted spoilers
After such an attention grabbing first book and an even more alluring teaser, I had to pick up Golden Son as soon as I could. Although I did notice aspects of the book resembling other stories, I don't think that's unlike anything you see nowadays, and Brown did exactly what should be done. He enhanced everything. I was so captivated by his words and what was going on, yet occasionally I wanted to punch Darrow in the face because of how he interacted with Mustang.
I think Golden Son did a better job at showcasing Darrow's flaws and made his character seem more personable because not everything goes his way. Whether it be the underwater scene or bringing Mustang back to his home or becoming an expendable to Augustus or not knowing what's going on with Ares. Obviously not everything can go perfectly in life and luckily, Brown didn't allow for everything to go perfectly in his book either.
As always, I very much enjoyed Darrow and Sevro's friendship and interaction. I think that even though neither shows a lot of emotion, they really portray a great friendship. Especially after Sevro finds out that Darrow is a red and is completely unbothered by the fact. I loved that Sevro had been contacted by Ares, too. I think that just strengthed his bond with Darrow. ALSO, I loved the comic relief at the beginning with Sevro sending unicorns! :)
But now it's time to talk about by far the BEST part of the book.... the ending. If you do not have the desire to read the final book in the trilogy ASAP then I don't even know what think. All I could think about after finishing the book was "HOLY SHIT." This plot twist was MUCH better than Red Rising's. In the first book, I had a strong feeling that the Jackal was going to end up being Mustang's brother, and even in Golden Son I knew that Fitchner was going to end up helping Darrow eventually, although he somewhat infuriated me throughout the beginning of the novel. But I was 100% definitely NOT expecting him to be Ares. Once I found out, I was like hell yes, now Fitchner can totally help Darrow and everything is going to go smoothly. But no, Brown decided to throw me ANOTHER curveball. I mean Roque and the head and killing Augustus and the Jackal and so many things were going on at once and I was just dumbfounded. It took me a minute to get my bearing after I finished reading everything. And of COURSE the teaser was extremely short.
That being said, I am so excited for the third book to come out so that I can conclude this trilogy. I have loved it so much and I'm hoping that the trend continues and the third book is somehow even better than Golden Son, but I don't know how that could be. I didn't think Golden Son could be better than Red Rising, though, and I was definitely proven wrong.