Reviews tagging 'War'

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

2641 reviews

quechaya's review against another edition

This is not adult fiction. It is full of YA tropes and the characters are all shallow or caricatures. First the protagonist is a poor orphan turned "chosen one" at a very special academy with a mysterious mentor, and then she joins a group of teenage x-men. Then the story becomes  very thinly veiled "fanfiction" of the Nanjing Massacre and Unit 731. To exploit those atrocities for the plot of a fantasy novel (for personal profit!) is absolutely disgusting in my opinion. Writing a fantasy novel means you should come up with your own fucking war crimes. It's disrespectful AND it's lazy writing. 

Anyway. If you want to experience secondhand trauma from reading about how horrible humans are, you can save yourself a lot of time by skipping this book and just reading the wikipedia pages for the Nanjing Massacre and Unit 731.

This pales in comparison to the book's other problems, but protagonist went on and on about two male characters being "perfect." And the guy she was obsessed with physically abused her multiple times. Cool!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

evilwoman's review against another edition

adventurous dark reflective tense fast-paced

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

3.5

To me it's a war story about a very confused morally grey young woman. Most of the time I wasn't sure what side she stood by or what she believed. It's fast paced and at the same time it feels like it drags a bit in some points. 
It's good. Revenge and war, not my favorite subjects and very very hard to justify, but... Let's see how the story goes. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Genocide, Rape, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Murder, and War

alysha714's review against another edition

This book started off nicely but quickly became too graphic in its descriptions of war. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Gaslighting, Colonisation, and War

hellichipmunk's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Gore, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

karenclare's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark sad tense fast-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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Genocide, Sexual assault, Torture, Violence, and War

Moderate: Slavery

emhollo's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Rape, Violence, and War

emct's review against another edition

2.25

too much war, which is a hilarious comment for a book called the poppy war. beginning was interesting, and enjoyed the shaman element but part ii was so war-centric, it made it hard for me to enjoy reading. specifically was pretty graphic at points for my taste, but i feel like a lot of this structured around the strategy/behind-the-scenes of war, which i didn’t enjoy reading as much. you can tell the author was a history major.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Genocide, Sexual assault, and War

mmyup's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I’ll never skip a read from R.F Kuang, not only is her worldbuilding insane, but the characters have so much depth to them. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that establishes characters and their motivations to the extent Kuang does. She covers war SO well, if you read this trust you will be hurting by the end of it, but it’s so worth it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Rape, Self harm, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Cannibalism, Religious bigotry, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

countesscaine's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

For someone familiar with the historical events that inspired this story, it feels a bit simplified in some places, but gratuitous in some descriptions as well. The story also feels quite predictable overall. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Gore, Infertility, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Medical trauma, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

mariah_g's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Body horror, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail