Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

152 reviews

tazzyreads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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sanukii's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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farosh's review

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4.75

We are introduced to Fang Runin, a war orphan who helps the Fangs at the shop and smuggling Opium. When she has to marry she decides that she'd do about anything if that means she doesn't need to marry some wealthy man thrice her age. She starts studying for the most competitive exam of the country to try and get into the military academy, Sinegard. Of course she gets in after months of torturous studying, just for her to be bullied and excluded for being a peasant, dark-skinned girl from the countryside. 

[Characters]
Rin is probably one of the most well-written female fantasy characters I know. She's been perfectly crafted from page one. I felt deeply intertwined with her story, her origin; her every feeling, frustration and wishes from beginning to end. Kuang always made me be able to relate to her or at least understand why Rin is acting the way she does. You can literally follow the evolution of her character and personality and while it hardly was surprising, it is very understandable indeed. 

Rin curled her fingers into fists at her sides, suddenly pissed off. True suffering? She had seen her friends stabbed with halberds, shot full of arrows, cut down with swords, burned to death in poisonous fog. She had seen Sinegard go up in flames. She had seen Khurdalain occupied by Federation invaders almost overnight.

"That boy is beyond redemption," said the Woman. "That boy is broken like the rest. But you, you are still pure. You can still be saved."
"I don't want to be saved!" Rin shrieked. "I want power! I want Altan's power! I want to be the most powerful shaman there ever was, so that there is no one i can't save!" 

"I taught you better than this." Jiang put a hand on her shoulder. He sounded as if he were pleading. "Didn't I, Rin?"
He could have have helped them. He could have stopped the massacre at Golyn Niis. He could have saved Nezha. But Jiang had hidden. His country had needed him, and he had fled to ensconce himself there, without any regard for those he left behind. 
He had abandoned her. He hadn't even said goodbye. 
But Altan... Altan had not given up on her. Altan had verbally abused her and hit her, but he had faith in her power. Altan had only ever wanted to make her stronger. 
"I'm sorry, sir." she said. "But I have my orders." 

Rin grew up a peasant, terrorized and physically abused by terrible, terrible "adoptive parents" who only used her as a free worker. She physically tortured herself to get into the Academy and left behind the little things she knew. She arrived there only to be mentally and physically tortured more, treated like less than human by 99% of the academy. She only has one true friend there. She learns under Jiang, her closest thing to a Mentor and father figure but he abandons her multiple times and is quite unreliable, even if he had good reasons for it. War breaks out and she sees more than half of her class and teachers die, she's forced to continue and when everyone finds out she's Speerly, she's forced to fight under the Cike. Now she's part of one of the most feared and hated races, one of the last two Speerly alive and part of an 8 member crew, hated by everyone else as well. The only other person she now knows there is Nezha, her ex-arch enemy. Nezha dies a tragic death and she has to watch him die, her only remnant of a friend. Altan becomes something close to her tutor as a commander and he's the only person she feels somewhat normal around until Altan breaks under the pressure even more so than before and he physically hurts and torments her too. She has truly no one, until she has to witness an entire genocide happening right in front of her eyes, is abandoned and needs to witness Altan being tortured until they fight for their freedom, just for Altan to sacrifice himself and her almost dying multiple times to end up in the hands of the Phoenix God, where Rin essentially gives up her soul so she can pledge her allegiance to him to end Mugen. If I understand someone turning into a bloodthirsty, mentally unstable and deeply bitter warcriminal, it's Rin. 

What makes the story so tragic besides the obvious paragraph above is that the book cleverly highlights that it's her decisions that led to all this. She could have chosen many a times to not follow this path, but she did. It makes sense, it's understandable, but it leaves me asking for all the possibilities, all the alternative futures she could have had. Could she have been happy in any of them, with Nezha, Venka, Altan and the others? 

My only critique of the plot:
We got such a well written deep-dive of Rin and Altan's characters and so much geopolitical worldbuilding and warfare, that the relationships between Rin and Altan, Rin and Nezha and Rin and Kitay were a little underdeveloped at times. I wished for a scene where Rin would have been able to *really* talk to Altan about all the trauma that made him up. One scene where she is able to calm him and distract him of all his burdens for some hours. I wished for some scenes where Nezha and Rin get the chance to actually become friends, because like pointed out multiple times; if the circumstances were different, they would have made great friends and fighting partners. I would have wished for scenes where Rin gets to enjoy Sinegard without any prejudice and hate, surrounded by Kitay and more girls. I would have wished for Rin to get some more chances to live without fear and worries and enjoy girlhood, before so much was taken from her and everyone else. 

I was scared of the politics and warfare in this book before starting out but I actually enjoyed it a lot. The geopolitics, magic system and spirituality/philosophical topics in the book made pulled off well and the book was filled with many quotes and stories that left me pondering. Jiangs, Altans, Rins, Chagans philosophies and different world-views were wonderfully conflicting and gave way to lots of dialogue that was crafted so well I had to put the story down and re-read them multiple times. The dialogue was so well written that it felt like the individual letters tumbled right out of the page and poured together in front of me. I could hear them scream out of exasperation, cry in pain and lash out in fury every other pages. I felt the tensions, anxiety, rage so vividly as if *I* was Rin in that moment. 


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filisia's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5


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mother_of_theo's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I have really mixed feelings about this book. Beautifully written, the author did an amazing job but I cannot relate to the main character which I think is the point of the book and the perspective the reader is supposed to feel. I know this book has sequels, so maybe I would give the series a higher rating as a whole completed story

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zhuariel's review

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adventurous dark sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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lucylovesgrapes's review

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adventurous dark emotional informative tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

my new favourite fantasy series. masterfully written and i am in awe that someone has written it. r.f. kuang writes rin as one of the most HUMAN characters i've read. she is brave and strong and intelligent and resilient and steadfast in her beliefs, but she's also vengeful, angry, disturbed by the atrocities she sees, scared, guilty and shameful. can't say i liked her at the end, but i also can't hate her. we are so entrenched in rin and her beliefs that not even slighlty understanding her rage and need for vengeance is impossible. this book was written by a deity among people. the shamanism is such an interesting process. there is no good governing body in the book and it just perfectly shows that everything isn't black and white. also, many parts of this book, if not all of it, reflect the current geopolitical climate. the utter frustration, guilt and helplessness is so familiar. i am so exicted to read the dragon republic

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linus_rieper's review against another edition

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dark informative sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This was a really hard book to get through.

This is not a book one should go into blindly. It is rough, and terrible. Well written, but heartbreaking in a way I have not experienced in a book before this. 

I cannot stress it enough, read the trigger warnings before reading this, and prepare for the unfiltered horrors of war.

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weareinheritors's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.75

Hoo boy, this book.

Hated the first half. I don't like academy/school fiction. This book had most of the tropes (plain girl good at everything, abusive curriculum, shitty teachers, two gorgeous boys (a rich Malfoy and a dark stranger)—thank goodness there was no romance, goofy best guy friend, etc). It was a slog and I nearly DNFd it, if not for the supposed promise of the better second half...

Which. My goodness, the whiplash. 

The second half is not for the faint of heart, from the (TW)
Rape of Nanjing sequence to the descriptions of actual rape to full-on genocide


It's an okay book, but Rin is so damn unlikeable. The surrounding cast are decent at their best, but Rin is so detestable that she drags them all down with her. The ending feels like she's gonna
start a revolution
or something, but I don't see anybody rallying behind her for any reason other than maybe fear.

I'll get to the sequel eventually. Maybe.

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taemd58's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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