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

2.0

This book started out pretty strong, bur it quickly got bogged down, and without much plot I couldn't wait for it to end. There were several "mysteries" that were presented early in the book, few of which got resolved - I assume they do in the subsequent books, which I will not read. Characters' motivations were thoroughly (over)explained by the author, yet still felt unconvincing. Most of the relationships between characters felt indifferent, despite being told otherwise in the text. The magic system's rules were not explained beyond "take some drugs to activate," "chat with some gods in the pantheon," and "eventually you go crazy." I think the world had a lot of promise, but unfortunately the execution did not work for me.