How is the second trilogy of Red Rising?

The second trilogy is night and day a better trilogy than the first IMO. Iron Gold may take a minute to get into since it’s a ton of world building. Endure, the last two books are the best in the whole series.

It’s great. Light bringer will break you, just so you know.

Can't imagine reading the first three and not the rest. They are fantastic. Really hoping Brown can finish it off with the last book in a satisfying fashion.

I had a hard time with the 4th book. Need to make it back.

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I absolutely HATED the first book of the 2nd series. Was completely annoyed by it the entire time

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This is how I felt. Hate might be a strong word for me with the 4th book, but it didn't make me want to keep going. I have friends that rave about 5 and 6. So, I will probably add it to the list.

As for the person asking about how you could not finish the second series if you read the first; for me, the first trilogy could have been all there was to the story. It had a mostly clean ending. So, I haven't had a real problem with not knowing how the overall story ends. If I hear that the last book was really good, I will probably get back into it.

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the first trilogy could have been all there was to the story. It had a mostly clean ending

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This is how I am. I do not like the shifting character viewpoints and I do not like at all what he has done with Darrow. I get it, but I didn't enjoy it

Now that it has been a few years, i will revisit

Light Bringer is the best of the series imo

I had already completed the T. G. Reynolds audiobooks, but had the itch recently to jump back in. I decided to try the Graphic Audio books with full cast and background music & sound effects. They are phenomenal! I highly recommend them. Certain side characters that originally didn't make an impact with me are now among my favorite characters (Holiday being one) because of how they are portrayed in this series. It adds new depth to characters.

I'm about 3/4ths through book 4 right now. I agree that's the weakest book of the series, but the G. A. audio books make that one a lot more tolerable. A certain annoying POV isn't anywhere near as bad. And some scenes in Book 4 become epic with music & sound effects going off while the mostly great cast does its narration.

Two issues with them: 1) Each book is broken down into multiple audio books. And each of those are sold as it's own book. So the series can get pricey if purchasing outright. They are available on Audible if you have credits or often go on sale if you want to purchase them. They might also be available with library audio book subscriptions if you go that route. 2) the series isn't complete yet. Book 5 is broken down into 3 audio books and the final part is expected to be released in June. I don't know what the ETA for Light Bringer is.

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I absolutely HATED the first book of the 2nd series. Was completely annoyed by it the entire time

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I think there are multiple elements to this that could have gotten you where you ended up

Multiple POVs: You only have one POV (Darrow) in the first trilogy and he's a character you like a lot immediately. In the second group of books, you have at least 4 POVs per book with 3 of them being new. Add in that you aren't getting as deep as quickly with any of those 3 as you are splitting time and it can make you feel blah about all 3 of them.

The POV Characters - one of them starts as a very whiney red who you have never met before, one is a Gray you have no idea who he is when it starts but quickly find that he is mostly closely related to a character that was in the first series for probably 20 pages and the third was only in the first series probably 40 total pages.

I think if the POVs had been different it would have made book 4 a lot more synergistic and easier to appreciate on first read. On a second read it is much easier as you know the story path so you can appreciate the POVs more. If he started book 4 with Cassius, Darrow, Holiday and Virginia for the first stanza it could have introduced a lot of the new characters without overwhelming a reader with new POVs


Edit: I did not love book 4 when I first read it. Now read/listened to it 3/4 times and appreciate it far more

Red Rising does tread the line on YA at times (although when you dive deep it is much deeper than that).

Its a great read but I understand where you are coming from. The trilogy is great though. I liked it a lot