💬 Review The Poppy War

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AtlaMaria

Lurker Lv0️⃣
Member for 3 years
Name of the eBook you are reviewing: The Poppy War

The Poppy War is the first book in the trilogy with the same name, a grimdark fantasy written by R. F. Kuang. It follows Fang Runin as she rejects an unwanted future in her hometown and enrolls in a top military academy. The setting is inspired by China in the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Review:
Spoiler free review of The Poppy War

I'm trying hard not to gush over this but if you like darker toned books you'll understand me after you read it.

First of all the, the flow was perfect for me, the right balance between action, dialogue, description and inner monologue. The narration style was beautiful but not too fancy. Everything in the book seemed to have a purpose, familiarizing us with the context in the book or rather showing us how Rin perceived it.

It really did a good job at conveying the feelings of the main character and I love that she was so flawed. I think this is my favorite thing about this book and series, the realness of Rin. Sometimes I would even get annoyed at her for making stupid decisions but given that you're seeing the world through her eyes you somewhat empathize with her and, honestly, she has to make really hard, most of the time morally gray, decisions. This is greatly accentuated in the second book though.

The first half mostly highlights the social context regarding class, everything from skin color to accent. Later in the book and throughout the second one we get to understand the political context. It's really interesting, even if the book is only based on China and not entirely accurate, to get a little insight on the matters that took place before and during the war between the Chinese and Japanese in the 30s and 40s.

Lastly, the whole feel of the book sometimes gives me shivers. The grimdark mostly kicks in towards the end and in the second book it comes with full force so if you're a fan of that you'll have to wait a little. It didn't seem to be for shock value to me but illustrating rather well the war through a soldier's eyes, the often unmentioned dark side of revolution and reform. But that's mostly in the second one. In the first we really get to be naive and see everything for the first time along with Rin.

Would you recommend this to other users? Absolutely, it got me out of a slump and I could honestly talk about it for hours. I tried to keep it as short as I could.

Excuse any mistakes, English isn't my first language but I wanted to share this masterpiece.

Rating(1-5): ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
 

Meikartainc

Apprentice Lv2️⃣
Member for 6 years
I completely agree with you! It's a ya, yet somehow still managed to caught that grim and bleak aura. Especially at the ending. Have you read the second book?
 
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