Books Like Red Rising

The obvious starting point and still one of the best. Katniss is an earlier version of Darrow — a young person from the lowest tier of a stratified society thrust into a deadly spectacle for the entertainment of the elite. Collins's pacing is relentless, the political underpinnings are sharper than they get credit for, and Katniss's transformation from reluctant participant to revolutionary symbol is one of the great arcs in YA fantasy. If you haven't read it, read it.

The original brilliant-child-trained-as-weapon story. Ender Wiggin is recruited into a military school to fight humanity's alien war, and the training sequences — the battle room, the mind games, the psychological manipulation — directly inspired the Institute sequences in Red Rising. The final act twist is one of the most famous in science fiction. If you loved watching Darrow master the Institute, Ender's Game is essential.

Roman Empire meets brutal fantasy academy. Laia goes undercover as a slave to save her brother while Elias, the empire's best soldier, is desperate to escape the system he was raised in. The gladiatorial trials have the same brutal momentum as the Institute in Red Rising, the political intrigue is sharp, and the dual POV gives you both the oppressor's and the oppressed's perspective on the same corrupt system. Visceral, fast, and emotionally devastating.

Where Red Rising asks what happens when the lowest caste fights back through infiltrating the elite, Mistborn asks what happens when a crew of thieves decides to overthrow a god-emperor who has ruled for a thousand years. Vin is a street urchin who discovers she has extraordinary powers, and the heist plot structure gives the book a momentum that never lets up. The magic system is one of the best ever designed and the ending genuinely shocked a generation of fantasy readers.

A fantasy based on 20th century Chinese history that starts in a school for military commanders and ends somewhere much darker. Rin is a peasant girl who aces her entrance exams and earns a place at the elite Sinegard academy — the underdog narrative of the first act gives way to something far more brutal and morally complex than almost anything else on this list. Kuang does not flinch. If Brown's willingness to hurt his characters attracted you, Kuang goes further.

A crew of con artists in a fantasy Venice running an audacious long game against the city's most powerful crime lord — and then things go catastrophically wrong. Lynch shares Brown's gift for making you love characters just before making terrible things happen to them. The Gentlemen Bastards series has the same propulsive plotting, the same sense that the protagonist is always three steps ahead until he suddenly isn't, and the same emotional whiplash.

A YA fantasy about a general's daughter who buys a slave at auction and gets drawn into the politics of a world about to go to war. Kestrel is a strategist rather than a fighter, which makes her a fascinating complement to Darrow — she wins through thinking rather than fighting. The trilogy has Red Rising's political complexity and the same sense of a protagonist playing a game with stakes they only partially understand. Underrated and essential.

Kaz Brekker and his crew of morally compromised misfits attempt an impossible heist from the most secure prison in the world. The ensemble dynamic here is different from Red Rising's singular focus on Darrow, but the tactical brilliance, the way each character has their own damage, and the sense of a plan coming together (and then falling apart) is deeply satisfying in the same way. Kaz is one of modern fantasy's great antiheroes.