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

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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

3.75

I don’t know what I expectef when I picked up a book called ”poppy war” but it was not this (I will be adding quite a bit of warnings). I knew basically nothing about it except there was a test, a school and based in china. Everything else came as a suprise and if I was surpirsed. 
Things seemed well thought out and nothing gave the impression of being shallow; just a character because it was needed which I really liked.

Slight spoiler because I don’t know how to talk about this book otherwise.
I really liked the time skips in the first half of the book. It didn’t need to tell certain things in detail so I’m glad it didn’t. It took me by surprise, that’s for sure, but I liked it. It also made things more convincing to learn that significant time had passed without anything noteworthy because that’s just life.

Still in the slight spoiler zone, but my closing thoughts. It was quite difficult to read at times. Again, I didn’t know anything going into this book so I didn’t expect the turn it took. I’m used to books glossing over a lot of things, but again, it delivered on the name.
I honestly don’t know if I’ll read the other books. I’m quite overwhelmed by everything. There were moments where I didn’t even want to read  because it would just lead to more missery. It was a good book on its own and as of right now, I don’t feel any need to read the next one. I think I need to leave this world for a while before I light pick up the next one.

All in all, would recommend with caution :)

(Audiobook)
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