cinderrunner 's review for:

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

4.0

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Powerful concepts and moral questioning. Rin is highly unlikable (in a not fun way) and, at best, can be viewed as a good example of a morally gray protagonist. Story felt a little slow and bogged down. The characters mostly lacked an emotional power and  definitely could've been fleshed out more. Character relationships needed more work. I found it hard to believe any of them gave the vaguest fuck about each other except for Kitay and Rin. Rin's relationship with Altan specifically needed more and the intensity of how she viewed him felt very random and weird. So much of the plot feels like it just sort of happens and only exists to propel us the the main horrors that come toward the end of the book. My rating would have been a lot lower if the pace and power of the story hadn't picked up so much in the last 100ish pages. Actually, if the rest of the book had the punch of those last 100 pages this might have been a 5 star read for me. Worth checking the content warnings for this one. Some of this stuff is brutal. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Gore, Infertility, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail