Red Rising (Red Rising Series #1)

Red Rising, by Pierce Brown
Forget the way people constantly compare this trilogy-opener to The Hunger Games; this epic space opera about a rebellion, a young hero, and a huge, detailed universe is Star Wars through and through. Darrow is recruited from the Martian mines to infiltrate the an elite competition designed to choose the next generation of an aristocratic ruling class that ruthlessly oppress the native population. Darrow must undergo painful surgeries in order to pass as one of the kids at a ruthless, exclusive private school, where he joins a warrior culture that will feel familiar to SW fans even as they learn a whole new vocabulary—but wasn’t discovering the details of a fictional universe part of the original appeal of the Holy Trilogy?