{"id":3557,"date":"2023-08-23T15:00:04","date_gmt":"2023-08-23T21:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=3557"},"modified":"2023-06-30T21:07:52","modified_gmt":"2023-07-01T03:07:52","slug":"book-golden-son-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2023\/08\/23\/book-golden-son-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK: Golden Son (2015)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><u><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com\/images\/S\/compressed.photo.goodreads.com\/books\/1421768885i\/24408006.jpg\" alt=\"Golden Son\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/>Golden Son<br \/><\/u><\/strong>Year: 2015<br \/>Author: Pierce Brown<br \/>Length: 1,143 minutes \/ 19.05 hours<\/p>\n<p>After reading this book (or more accurately, listening to it), I&#8217;m on the edge of whether I&#8217;ll continue this series. I thought <a href=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2020\/04\/30\/book-red-rising-2014\/\"><em>Red Rising<\/em><\/a> was OK for what seemed like a <em>Hunger Games<\/em> rip-off. Perhaps my problem with this one was trying to listen to it while caring for an infant. Or it was that it&#8217;s been three years since I read the last book. Maybe the genre (or what&#8217;s become of it) really doesn&#8217;t appeal to me. At any rate, I had trouble engaging with this book at all.<\/p>\n<p>It didn&#8217;t help that I only vaguely remembered the main character and what his goal was. This sequel didn&#8217;t seem to have any of the recurring characters from the previous book, or at least it didn&#8217;t pull from that cast of characters very much. I understood the need for a revolution against the higher classes via infiltration, but the motivation of the main character still felt hollow. Especially now that he was among the elite, I found myself not caring about anything that was happening. It was as if he knew he was going to win no matter what, so why even bother rooting for him?<\/p>\n<p>The plot itself felt convoluted, and I caught myself frequently wondering what had actually happened. A few scenes stood out to me, but they seemed to omit the larger context of what made them significant. I still question why this series is so heavily into Roman mythology and aesthetic when its sci-fi roots are clearly trying to take control at every turn. That may actually hit at my core problem with this series: it doesn&#8217;t even know what it&#8217;s trying to be.<\/p>\n<p>Confusing, boring, and unengaging, I give <em>Golden Son<\/em> 2.5 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<h2><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a01\/2<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/bmw-the-critic\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"820\" height=\"312\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2968\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2.jpg 820w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2-300x114.jpg 300w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2-768x292.jpg 768w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2-640x244.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Golden SonYear: 2015Author: Pierce BrownLength: 1,143 minutes \/ 19.05 hours After reading this book (or more accurately, listening to it), I&#8217;m on the edge of whether I&#8217;ll continue this series. I thought Red Rising was OK for what seemed like a Hunger Games rip-off. Perhaps my problem with this one was trying to listen to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,54],"tags":[55,2265,3445,3447,2364,3446,8,2367],"class_list":["post-3557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2-5-stars","category-book","tag-book","tag-class-struggle","tag-golden-son","tag-infiltration","tag-pierce-brown","tag-red-rising-trilogy","tag-review","tag-roman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3557"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3561,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3557\/revisions\/3561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}