Reviews with content warning for Addiction - The Poppy War

I wanted to love this book, and at times I did greatly enjoy it! The first half of the book did grab my attention, it brought in a new interesting system of magic, martial arts fighting, and a unique retelling of what a boarding school story could really be. I loved the bleed over of militarization into the aforementioned boarding school, and the training of children to become military leaders. All of this was fascinating and gripping and truly intriguing.
But that all disappeared almost completely. The unique and exciting fight sequences from the school were replaced with boring sword fights that had no indication that the martial arts training even really mattered. The magic system overwhelmed every other aspect of the fighting that remained. And the main character, once brash but still sympathetic and intelligent, became even more brash, lost all sense of her own morals (in that she became ambivalent about what previously seemed to be core moral beliefs), and no longer had any sense of military strategy that once was so key. Rather than these decisions feeling like intentional character development (maybe to highlight the difference between schooling vs real life battle), it feels like the author turned the protagonist into a doll to make whatever point she (author) was trying to make at that point in the book. This also seems to be the case as nearly every side character or supporting character becomes one-dimensional, serving one role in the story to teach one lesson, and once that lesson is taught they disappear or are killed.
In an effort to keep reading, hoping that maybe I had just reached the low point in the book, I read further reviews and plot summaries and based on everything I could find the first half of this book seems to be an outlier which was unlike the rest of the series. I am thoroughly disappointed and saddened that I did not enjoy this book to the point of a dnf. I had even recommended this to my partner based on the super interesting martial arts aspect seen in the first half, but had to tell them to not read the book after that aspect was dropped completely.

Content Warnings

sierraclimbs's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

I enjoyed this book much more upon re-read. I think the first time I read it I wasn’t well informed about the adult nature of this story & therefore was pretty taken aback by the violence & tragedy of it all. But going in to it a second time knowing what to expect I really really enjoyed it.
It feels like an Asian version of Game of Thrones. Creative, heart wrenching, unexpected twists, complicated human relations, magic, it’s got it all.
This story is not for the faint of heart. It’s about young children/ young adults going through terrible things. But I think it does an amazing job depicting the truly contradictory nature of humanity. Nothing is black & white. People change their minds. The human condition is complex & doesn’t always do what is right.
Excited to have reacquainted myself with the story & characters so I can read the next two.

Content Warnings

therandomblossom's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark medium-paced

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

4.75

Content Warnings

milaju's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious 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? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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