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Red Rising by Pierce Brown. One of the reasons why it is my favorite is that RR was his debut novel. So you get to witness the evolution of his writing style. It gets darker with every book. The first one is his weakest but is still excellent. The 10 yrs after ones are far more grown up and I love them infinitely.
He also has a prequel comic series but that may take a while to get because the publishers are going out of business. He has a patron called Shit Escalates that has another prequels book being published exclusively on there weekly. The Fandom is vast and rarely toxic. The final book is being worked on and will be called Red God. You will love it.
I discovered the series a year after it came out in 2015 and have been reading it ever since. The author is exceptional and a total troll on socials with fans. Avoid his profile and Reddit. He doesn't spoil but sometimes will post images of how he trolls fans and that can be a spoiler even if it isn't blatant. They have a social for merch and merch for two other authors called Lit Escalates.
Anyways! You won't regret starting the series. Every book gets longer and bigger up until Lightbringer which was the latest one. Its still big but not as big as Dark Age, my favorite one by the way. Again, anyways, you'll enjoy it.
If you want to keep up to date in case you do read it, I would love that. I swear us fans are kind of sadistic in a way in the absolute delight we take in witnessing first time readers experiencing specific parts. But really any part, any opinion, I will take great happiness in reading. Thank you for considering the story and reading this monstrous ramble.
