In the process of gathering and organizing my thoughts and many feelings about Light Bringer, I’ve decided to divide them between spoilers and non-spoilers. This is the non-spoiler post. And when I say non-spoiler, I mean no specific details about what happens in the book. But I am going to be talking about general impressions, so if that’s more than you want to know about the book before you read it, now’s your chance to back out!

In short, I absolutely loved reading this book and am already looking forward to revisiting it at some point before the next book comes out. In the meantime, here are some general things that stood out to me…

The Character Growth

One of the things I love about the Red Rising books is the way some characters have changed over time, and how they’ve been affected by the things they’ve experienced and the people around them. I’m not just talking about Darrow, though he’s obviously a great example of that, but he’s certainly not the only one.

Light Bringer featured some really interesting character development. It has me feeling extremely excited about the role certain characters will play in Book 7 and how their experiences up to this point will impact their decisions going forward.

I Think I Needed This Exact Pacing

Light Bringer wasn’t non-stop action. Don’t get me wrong, there was plenty of action, but some of the parts that stand out most in my mind took place in between the action. Maybe that’s why I was able to appreciate the character development as much as I did. A lot of things happened in Iron Gold and Dark Age, and I don’t know that we really got to see most of the main characters process those events, either because there just wasn’t time, or maybe because they chose not to.

While Light Bringer featured some of the most exciting moments in the series to date, it also took some time to breathe once in a while, and I think that’s one of the reasons I was able to enjoy it as much as I did. My level of investment in these characters has only grown with each book, so I think there’s real value in the moments we get to see them process what’s happened to them, whatever that might entail.

All of the feelings

So many feelings. Light Bringer is an emotional rollercoaster, and though it left me feeling drained and a bit unsettled by the final page, it also left me feeling satisfied and genuinely excited for whatever comes next. I’m not going to get into many specifics about what emotions I felt beyond that, but I will say that when I reference emotions and feelings here, I’m talking about a spectrum, from positive to negative (and everything in between).

Numerous times throughout Light Bringer, I found myself flashing back to when I first read Golden Son and Morning Star. I specify those books because, in a way, Iron Gold and — to an extent — Dark Age remind me a bit more of Red Rising in the way they set up the characters and their relationships with one another. The two books that followed Red Rising provided a lot of memorable emotional payoff as we saw the characters and their stories evolve over time.

Just like I remember experiencing when reading Golden Son and Morning Star, there were times while reading Light Bringer where the path from the previous book(s) to here seemed so clear. There’s something really satisfying in that, as a reader. In terms of emotional payoff and level of satisfaction, Light Bringer ranks up there with Golden Son and Morning Star for me. Probably a bit more Golden Son because this one also left me immediately wanting to know what happened next.

Anticipation

We know that Red Rising Book 7 is on the way (no release date has been announced yet as far as I know, but per Pierce Brown’s announcement in July 2022, it’s titled Red God). Light Bringer does a wonderful job of setting up major anticipation for Book 7. It’s impossible to predict what’s coming next, but I’m undoubtedly excited to check back in with these characters.

In the meantime, I can’t think of a single other thing to talk about here that doesn’t involve spoilers, so I’ll leave it at that, and hopefully be back in the near future to discuss more specific things about Light Bringer.