RED RISING by PIERCE BROWN (2013)

Red Rising is a mixed hodge podge of plot elements from other best selling books: Ender's Game, The Hunger Games, and Divergent, most notably, with some contribution from The Game of Thrones thrown in. I suppose every author takes inspiration from books which have come before, but Brown carries his emulation to an extreme, contributing no new ideas at all that I could perceive. Like Divergent, this novel features a stratified society; like Ender's Game it features a brutal training school to determine future leaders; like The Hunger Games it features teenagers in combat in primitive circumstances, with an audience which is able to observe their every move and reward winners; and like The Game of Thrones it features political infighting between factions and the author's willingness to kill off principal characters from time to time.

After I read the first ten pages, I checked the internet to see if Red Rising was marketed as a Young Adult book. It was not, to my surprise. It certainly reads like a YA book. and not one of the better ones, at that. It is the first of a trilogy, with all being best sellers. I would not recommend it to an adult reader, but I think my 11-year-old grandson would enjoy it. Parts of it are fast moving and would likely be exciting for young readers.

I have not summarized the specific plot at all, because if you have read the books mentioned above, you can probably pretty much figure it out for yourself.