Bloodydamn was this a good book!!!
I forgot how much I loved this world until I stepped back into it with Iron Gold! I forgot how much I loved these characters until I read their sarcastic jokes.
Something that nobody ever seems to comment on in the Red Rising world is that the family dynamic especially in Morning Star and now IG is truly fantastic. They're all unrelated by blood but that doesn't matter to them because they share this unbreakable bond, creating their own kind of family. It's so beautiful- just seeing interactions between the survivors of MS and now in IG. It left me a blubbering mess of nostalgia.
Now since this is the fourth book in the series, I'm not going into too much detail because I don't want to spoil the first three books for anyone but-
IG takes place about 10 years after the events of MS, and I've never read a story with that factor before. You can really see the changes of the characters because so many of them have different opinions from what they once were. I mean obviously these characters go from 23 to 33 years old, which you'd expect changes in personality and such. It felt really realistic (or as much as a sci-fi can be considered realistic for character attitudes). Though of course many characters are still their lovable selves- a specific family is 110% their hysterical selves and I love them to death!
The new POV's were really interesting to me. Ephraim especially seemed so random at first, but once you discover his connection to previous characters, he really became a perfect POV to read. Significantly at the end- I was left with this absolute obsession to only read his POV because it was so good. The same goes with Lyria. Once her part in the story really took off, I was left in awe at how much I loved her POV.
These POV's seemed like huge underdogs, but at the end, I was honestly rooting for their POV's over the other two.
All in all, this book was everything I wanted it to be. Pierce Brown has one of my favorite writing styles, and he again certainly lived up to his expectations of creating chaos when all seemed to be going smoothly.
The places he took the plot STILL amaze me. It's one of those books that you can't stop thinking about for days because you're just screaming "WHAT?!" inside your head.
Also side note: Pierce Brown has the best or is among the top best in terms of writing military tactics and scenes in his books (or in my opinion). I'm astounding every time- ASTOUNDED.