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

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative inspiring sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I was promised to read the best fantasy novel ever, which was a bad set up, therefore i can only give this book 4⭐. It was a great book, but I was expecting it to be outstanding. When i found the same themes that are in every fantasy book, i felt somewhat disappointed. However, there were moments were i thought "damn, finally someone whos not following the text book of how to write a fantasy novel. It was very engaging, there was only one time i didnt feel like continuing it, but that also had to do with lack of time. It's fast paced, in the sense that quite a few years pass in the first half of the book, which i thought was very rushed while reading - in hindsight i think it was necessary and well done. I also love that R. F. Kuang did plenty of research about the japanese/chinese war, you can really see that she knows a lot about this topic when reading the book! 

what really put me off, though, was the immaturity of the protagonist. I'm guessing shes around 16 to 17 years old, but I thought since it's maketed towards adults, ths protagonist will be more mature. I found her a little annoying sometimes, but i want to continue reading, because the last pages made me think, that maybe its just a necessary character trait (not immaturity but something more like hot-headedness), which is going to make the story very interesting. 

definitely gonna clntinue this series and can recommend it :) 
oh but it's very graphic and brutal at times, look out for that! 
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