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ritzee13 's review for:
The Poppy War
by R.F. Kuang
adventurous
dark
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
3.5 ✨️✨️
The first half was fantastic and easily a 5 stars. However I didn't love the pacing in the second half, I liked the grimdark but the author didn’t let the audience sit with the tragedy it was very quickly swept aside for another tragedy, to the point where it got numbing.
Spoilers....
Rin changed opinions so fast in the second half, it was like observing a naive kid rather than the trained person we saw at Sineguard. One instance I remember is where Rin says Altan smoking opium is terrible and she cries and lashes out. Then, laterally 2 pages later she says she understands and smokes WITH him! How does that make any sense. This repeats throughout the book and even until the last page where she keeps switching between Altans aggression and Jiangs passive opinions; I kept thinking, well what's your opinion, Rin?? Can you not strike a balance between your 2 mentors?
I also hated that Altan was described as a model of sanity and control in the Cike, then not even 20 pages later he is being physically and verbally abusive, smoking opium, and lashing out at everything. I wish the author described him with an underlying tone of madness, so that the switch was not abrupt.
I also started to look into the Sino Japanese war that inspired this book and felt the book did well in that aspect as it did use lots of historical facts and books like Jounery to the West and Investiture of the Gods for its mythological explanations. However, I didn't enjoy how the author wrote the Japanese like cartoonish villains. I know they did a lot of terrible things during the war, but there was no nuance to this, they were just pure evil and the Nikara are stupid enough to fall for each or their ploys. It didn't feel like a real battle where each side thinks they are right and to a certain degree you can justify their opinion, but also disagreeing with their brutality.
The only reason this book is getting a 3.5 is because of the first half and how well it was written and paced. While the second half was not terrible, it felt so rushed and confused. The mugeni got burnt up in the last few pages which was so rushed, it didn't feel like good vengeance or like the wrong decision as the readers didn't get much time to digest it.
The first half was fantastic and easily a 5 stars. However I didn't love the pacing in the second half, I liked the grimdark but the author didn’t let the audience sit with the tragedy it was very quickly swept aside for another tragedy, to the point where it got numbing.
Spoilers....
Rin changed opinions so fast in the second half, it was like observing a naive kid rather than the trained person we saw at Sineguard. One instance I remember is where Rin says Altan smoking opium is terrible and she cries and lashes out. Then, laterally 2 pages later she says she understands and smokes WITH him! How does that make any sense. This repeats throughout the book and even until the last page where she keeps switching between Altans aggression and Jiangs passive opinions; I kept thinking, well what's your opinion, Rin?? Can you not strike a balance between your 2 mentors?
I also hated that Altan was described as a model of sanity and control in the Cike, then not even 20 pages later he is being physically and verbally abusive, smoking opium, and lashing out at everything. I wish the author described him with an underlying tone of madness, so that the switch was not abrupt.
I also started to look into the Sino Japanese war that inspired this book and felt the book did well in that aspect as it did use lots of historical facts and books like Jounery to the West and Investiture of the Gods for its mythological explanations. However, I didn't enjoy how the author wrote the Japanese like cartoonish villains. I know they did a lot of terrible things during the war, but there was no nuance to this, they were just pure evil and the Nikara are stupid enough to fall for each or their ploys. It didn't feel like a real battle where each side thinks they are right and to a certain degree you can justify their opinion, but also disagreeing with their brutality.
The only reason this book is getting a 3.5 is because of the first half and how well it was written and paced. While the second half was not terrible, it felt so rushed and confused. The mugeni got burnt up in the last few pages which was so rushed, it didn't feel like good vengeance or like the wrong decision as the readers didn't get much time to digest it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Trafficking, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail