A review by alychee
The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny 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

3.5

SO the famous poppy war... i think i expected better with all the praise rf kuang had for this book, but i thought it was lacking in a few aspects but that are so important. what threw me off the most is the excessive telling and the almost no showing, and it's hard to like characters when you see nothing of them :/ or to believe they have "chemistry" or know each other bc they analysed each other for so long BUT we never see that ? it's just "yeah they're obsessed with each other, no you won't know why" 
also big issue :
nezha's "development" ??? "im nice now!" since when ? why ? what happened ? i understand war changes people
but please if it had been a double pov it would have been so much richer.
we get a chapter where rin is nowhere, + they introduce
(and kill)
a new character out of the blue without links to what was before but we can't see nezha in the army? kitay's division? venka? the other parts of the war? i mean we could have had a little hint of what was happening elsewhere in a few pages like some authors do.

anywayz, for me the worst part was rin's stupid decisions. people with yeaaars of more experience than her tell her not to do something and they even give her real life examples of the consequences and yet she does it anyway (for now, okay, i support women's wrongs) BUT THEN INSTANTLY SHE REGRETS IT ?? then you think okay maybe she learned her lesson! NO SHE DOESN'T. SHE NEVER DOES. SHE KEEPS DOING THE SAME THINGS: NOT LISTENING AND 30 SECONDS LATER CRYING BC SHE REGRETS LIKE RIN BE SMARTER YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE SMART WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS 

overall: good book, not a fav, made me soooo angry (bc of rin but also the concept of mugen and the whole genocide thing), but i wasn't sad for characters that i should feel sad for... bc we never see them long enough to feel anything! 
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