Books like Red Rising
What should you read after Pierce Brown’s novel? It depends on what you loved most about it.
- Pierce Brown
- 2014
- Science fiction
What did you love about it?
Choosing one reorders everything below.
Best books to read after Red Rising
Ranked overall. Pick what you loved above to re-rank them.
Best overall matchRed Queen
Victoria Aveyard
A servant caste, a stolen identity, and a girl planted inside the palace of the people who own her. Brown's premise with the violence dialled down and the court intrigue up.
- A society sorted by colour caste
- A miner rebuilt as an aristocrat
- Alliances that keep betraying
- YA romance takes over
Best for the arenaThe Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins
The book Brown is arguing with. Children fighting to entertain a capital, except Collins keeps the horror front and centre instead of making it a curriculum.
- A school where students kill
- A society sorted by colour caste
- Brutal, close-quarters violence
- Shorter and simpler
Best for the military schoolEnder's Game
Orson Scott Card
The template for the Institute: a gifted child put through escalating war games by adults who have already decided what he is for. Colder and cleverer.
- A school where students kill
- A long infiltration played patiently
- Roman empire rebuilt in space
- Written in 1985, it shows
Great matchThe Maze Runner
James Dashner
Boys dropped into a lethal enclosure by unseen adults, forming ranks and rules to survive it. Same claustrophobia, much less strategy.
- A school where students kill
- Brutal, close-quarters violence
- Thin prose and worldbuilding
Great matchDivergent
Veronica Roth
Sorting by trait instead of colour, and an initiation you can wash out of. If the Institute was your favourite section, this is 500 pages of initiation.
- A society sorted by colour caste
- A school where students kill
- A miner rebuilt as an aristocrat
- Romance-forward
Great matchThe Giver
Lois Lowry
The quiet ancestor of all of it: assigned roles, engineered peace, and one boy who learns what the arrangement costs. Read in an afternoon.
- A society sorted by colour caste
- A miner rebuilt as an aristocrat
- Middle-grade register
Great matchLegend
Marie Lu
Two teenagers from opposite ends of a stratified republic, one of them a prodigy from the slums. Brisk, plotted, and better on class than most of its shelf.
- A society sorted by colour caste
- A miner rebuilt as an aristocrat
- Slighter worldbuilding
Great matchThe Fifth Wave
Rick Yancey
Child soldiers trained by people lying to them about the enemy, which is Darrow's situation from the other direction. Strong first half especially.
- A long infiltration played patiently
- A school where students kill
- Alien invasion premise
Worth a look — with a warningThe 100
Kass Morgan
Teenagers dropped onto a ruined Earth to see whether it kills them, sorted by crime and class. The bones are Brown's; the execution is thinner.
- A society sorted by colour caste
- A school where students kill
- Written for the TV pitch
Best for the Roman brutalityAn Ember in the Ashes
Sabaa Tahir
A Rome-modelled empire, a military academy that murders its own cadets, and a slave planted inside it. The closest anyone has come to Red Rising's exact temperature.
- Roman empire rebuilt in space
- A school where students kill
- A long infiltration played patiently
- Fantasy, not science fiction
Worth a look — with a warningThe Selection
Kiera Cass
The caste numbering and the girl from the bottom of it are here, but the competition is for a prince rather than for survival.
- A society sorted by colour caste
- A miner rebuilt as an aristocrat
- Essentially a dating show
Best for the emotional brutalityThe Knife of Never Letting Go
Patrick Ness
Ness will not spare you anything, including the things Brown does to Eo. A chase novel that keeps making its hero choose between bad and worse.
- Revenge for a murdered wife
- Brutal, close-quarters violence
- Alliances that keep betraying
- Phonetic dialect narration
Great matchGraceling
Kristin Cashore
A young woman raised as her king's weapon who works out what she was built for. Less carnage, but the same arc of a made instrument turning on its maker.
- A miner rebuilt as an aristocrat
- Alliances that keep betraying
- Slower and more romantic
What should you read after Red Rising?
Red Rising by Pierce Brown works on several levels at once, and which book you should read next depends on which of those levels got you. For most readers the closest match is Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard — a servant caste, a stolen identity, and a girl planted inside the palace of the people who own her. Brown's premise with the violence dialled down and the court intrigue up.
If what stayed with you was a school where students kill, read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins instead: the book Brown is arguing with. Children fighting to entertain a capital, except Collins keeps the horror front and centre instead of making it a curriculum. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card is the other strong option — the template for the Institute: a gifted child put through escalating war games by adults who have already decided what he is for. Colder and cleverer.
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