Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'

Опиумная война by R.F. Kuang

1146 reviews

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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adventurous challenging 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

i've made piece with the fact that r.f.kuang's academic prowess is virtually inseparable from her creative writing. she tells stories like she's writing a text book...which isn't necessarily a bad thing! on one hand, there's little room left for subtext and there are times when we are told large blocks of information through character conversations. luckily i had no issue with skim reading bc, i was really invested in the world and the war she's created for the poppy war.

our heroine rin is the perfect shade of grey. the pacing at the beginning of the story was very slow, but i'm glad i stuck with rin's journey. her motivation for wanting to go to the sinegard are simple and strong. the scene where she
self-sterilises was...wow. i wasn't expecting it. but her reasoning was written very convincingly.


the military academy portion was my favourite part of the book, and i think rin made some really touching friendships there. rin's relationships with other characters - specifically jiang and altan added to her complexities. there was so much to analyse, and this is only the first book! (imo rin attributes power with safety, but in actuality, on top is the most dangerous place to be as someone will always seek to rob her of such a high status.)
call me delulu...but i'm convinced that nezha is still alive. and that he will return in book 2. his rivallry with rin really snuck up on me, i wasn't expecting to enjoy their dynamic as much as i did. naturally, there is no place for a romance between them in the midst of so much war and violence. plus, rin's aversion to marriage, fertility etc means there will always be a strong denial from her end.


the revelation that rin was
a speerly felt very...anti-climactic. one character connected the dots, told her she was from speer...and rin just accepted it. from that point onward she was a speerly...
idk...i expected this bombshell to trigger a deep reflection into rin's identity and maybe an exploration of grief. but the overall writing style was a barrier to accessing rin's introspection.

very curious to see how this journey continues.



Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark 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

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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: Complicated

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous challenging dark medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: N/A
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I don’t know what I expectef when I picked up a book called ”poppy war” but it was not this (I will be adding quite a bit of warnings). I knew basically nothing about it except there was a test, a school and based in china. Everything else came as a suprise and if I was surpirsed. 
Things seemed well thought out and nothing gave the impression of being shallow; just a character because it was needed which I really liked.

Slight spoiler because I don’t know how to talk about this book otherwise.
I really liked the time skips in the first half of the book. It didn’t need to tell certain things in detail so I’m glad it didn’t. It took me by surprise, that’s for sure, but I liked it. It also made things more convincing to learn that significant time had passed without anything noteworthy because that’s just life.

Still in the slight spoiler zone, but my closing thoughts. It was quite difficult to read at times. Again, I didn’t know anything going into this book so I didn’t expect the turn it took. I’m used to books glossing over a lot of things, but again, it delivered on the name.
I honestly don’t know if I’ll read the other books. I’m quite overwhelmed by everything. There were moments where I didn’t even want to read  because it would just lead to more missery. It was a good book on its own and as of right now, I don’t feel any need to read the next one. I think I need to leave this world for a while before I light pick up the next one.

All in all, would recommend with caution :)

(Audiobook)

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous challenging dark informative sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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