rnbhargava 's review for:

The Dragon Republic by R.F. Kuang

3.75

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious relaxing sad tense medium-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

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The book is quite strong for much of it. However, in the tail end with excessive large battle scenes you lose a lot of the excellent character dynamics of more one on one battles, conversations and interrogation scenes that are Kuang’s strong suit. The Dragon Republic is strongest when focused on character dynamics in the face of the greater war politics. The inequalities and bigotries shown by different groups is quite prevalent throughout the book. Rin’s self hate toward her ethnicity is quite apparent through the narrative too. The book does a really good job of showing that all supposed great leaders ultimately have selfish interests. Some of the added backstory elements are really intriguing. The real life historical background references are very apparent if you know your stuff but it’s also got enough of a veneer of fictionalizing if you don’t. This middle book is a slight step back from “The Poppy War” but not by much and it’s mostly due to pacing hiccups. Please note the role that alcohol and drug use plays in the narrative if you are sensitive to such content. There’s a lot of it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism