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mateosalmeron 's review for:
The Poppy War
by R.F. Kuang
5/5 ★'s
Absolutely Gruesome
30 hours traveling to Asia gave me a good excuse to crank this book in one sitting. I was slightly spoiled an ending theme that wasn’t that big of a deal, and really enjoyed the ideas the book stirred up. This book is really intense at a lot of points. And it creates a lot of empathy between the reader and the Rin, main character, at the last part of the book.
”War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who remains.”
War is horrible. This book makes you think about so many anti-war themes, I found my morales questioned a lot of the time in all parts. I think the idea of modern war today is terrifying to think about. It’s crazy that 4 countries could wipe out our ecosystem as we know it. I count myself incredibly lucky for not being exposed to bomb/nuke drills in school. To be a teenager during the height of the Cold War must have been so stressful. I guess today is a different type of stress, I won’t lie and say I get nervous of potential school shootings for my future kids. I feel like Kuang got a good opportunity to fully show the messages she wanted to deliver. Messages like “the victor’s depict the story of the war” and “if you kill a murder, the number of murders doesn’t decrease in the world.”
”You humans always think you’re destined for things, for tragedy or for greatness. Destiny is a myth. Destiny is the only myth. The gods choose nothing. You chose.”
I am very impressed with the world Kuang was able to create. I think there were a few weirdly placed cuss words in the text, that kinda just felt like “Hey, this is an adult grimdark book. We can use adult language here.” And the magic system could have been flushed out a little more, but I am hopeful it will be more developed in the next two books. But those two points didn’t completely take away how much I loved the story. It definitely still maintained a 5/5 in my eyes.
Absolutely Gruesome
30 hours traveling to Asia gave me a good excuse to crank this book in one sitting. I was slightly spoiled an ending theme that wasn’t that big of a deal, and really enjoyed the ideas the book stirred up. This book is really intense at a lot of points. And it creates a lot of empathy between the reader and the Rin, main character, at the last part of the book.
”War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who remains.”
War is horrible. This book makes you think about so many anti-war themes, I found my morales questioned a lot of the time in all parts. I think the idea of modern war today is terrifying to think about. It’s crazy that 4 countries could wipe out our ecosystem as we know it. I count myself incredibly lucky for not being exposed to bomb/nuke drills in school. To be a teenager during the height of the Cold War must have been so stressful. I guess today is a different type of stress, I won’t lie and say I get nervous of potential school shootings for my future kids. I feel like Kuang got a good opportunity to fully show the messages she wanted to deliver. Messages like “the victor’s depict the story of the war” and “if you kill a murder, the number of murders doesn’t decrease in the world.”
”You humans always think you’re destined for things, for tragedy or for greatness. Destiny is a myth. Destiny is the only myth. The gods choose nothing. You chose.”
I am very impressed with the world Kuang was able to create. I think there were a few weirdly placed cuss words in the text, that kinda just felt like “Hey, this is an adult grimdark book. We can use adult language here.” And the magic system could have been flushed out a little more, but I am hopeful it will be more developed in the next two books. But those two points didn’t completely take away how much I loved the story. It definitely still maintained a 5/5 in my eyes.