Morning Star
Pierce Brown, 2016
★ 4.55 from 517.2k ratings on Goodreads
A captive hero, a brutal hierarchy, and the cost of turning pain into purpose in the Red Rising saga. A grim, fast war story that keeps grief and hope pressed close, told in a plain, driving voice.
Feels like grief, hope and dread. About war, freedom and love.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you want a hard-edged science-fiction war with found family and emotional stakes. Some readers found the closing stretch rushed or were unhappy with Mustang’s arc, so go in ready for uneven payoff.
Why read it
It puts the cost of fighting a rigid hierarchy into plain, personal terms, and gives you a tense, feeling-heavy finish to the saga.
A page from the book
Everything is cracked except the moments that make it worth it.
I breathe in the full scent of her. If it ends tomorrow or in eighty years, I could breathe her for the rest of my life. But I want more. I need more. I tilt her slender jaw up with my hand so that she’s looking at me. I was going to say something important. Something memorable. But I’ve forgotten it in her eyes. That gulf that divided us is still there, filled with questions and recrimination and guilt, but that’s only part of love, part of being human. Everything is cracked, everything is stained except the fragile moments that hang crystalline in time and make life worth living. What readers say
Readers describe an emotionally devastating finale that made them cry, fear for characters, and love the found family. Many praise the shocking twists and satisfying ending, though some found it rushed or underwhelming and disliked Mustang’s arc.
Pierce Brown.Pierce Brown wrote much of Red Rising in early mornings before his day job, then revised it after signing with an agent.
Books that feel like this
More by Pierce Brown
Red Rising
Pierce Brown, 2014
A sixteen-year-old Helldiver in the helium mines under Mars, fastest hands in his clan, decides the order of things can be broken.
Golden Son
Pierce Brown, 2015
A young warlord trained by the ruling caste plots from inside their empire, chasing a fleet he means to turn against them.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is Morning Star for me?
- You may like it if you want a hard-edged science-fiction war with found family and emotional stakes. Some readers found the closing stretch rushed or were unhappy with Mustang’s arc, so go in ready for uneven payoff.
- What is Morning Star like?
- A grim, fast war story that keeps grief and hope pressed close, told in a plain, driving voice. Feels like grief, hope and dread. About war, freedom and love.
- What should I read after Morning Star?
- If you liked Morning Star, try Mockingjay (Suzanne Collins), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (J. K. Rowling) and A Thousand Splendid Suns (Khaled Hosseini).
A taste of the feed
What it costs to stop believing your own species deserves to survive.
I no longer feel any allegiance to these monsters called human beings, despite being one myself. I think that Peeta was onto something about us destroying one another and letting some decent species take over. Because something is significantly wrong with a creature that sacrifices its children’s lives to settle its differences.
Mockingjay · Suzanne Collins
How much changes when a choice stops being made for you?
It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew — and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents — that there was all the difference in the world.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince · J. K. Rowling
How long it takes before cruelty becomes ordinary.
It wasn’t easy tolerating him talking this way to her, to bear his scorn, his ridicule, his insults, his walking past her like she was nothing but a house cat. But after four years of marriage, Mariam saw clearly how much a woman could tolerate when she was afraid. And Mariam was afraid.
A Thousand Splendid Suns · Khaled Hosseini
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