Reviews with content warning for Slavery - The Poppy War

I was never a real fan of fantasy books. They all felt the same to me and I always struggled reading them. However, The Poppy War was refreshing, unpredictable, and beautifully written. It did not shy away from the horrors of genocide and the aftermath of genocide, using Rin’s character development to symbolize the effects of war.
Even though there were some flaws in this book (such as the author reusing the same similes within pages of another or the odd will-they-won’t-they between Rin and Altan and Nezha), R.F. Kuang’s debut novel is definitely deserving of 5/5 stars.

Content Warnings

kbeucler's review against another edition

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3.75

I loved Babel by Kuang so I was really excited to read this book. The start to an epic fantasy trilogy, the story follows Rin, an orphan from a remote part of the Nikara Empire who tests into the elite military academy Sinegard where she attempts to prove she belongs there. Along the way she discovers her own shamanic powers and begins to unravel the mysteries of her past. The book is inspired by Chinese military history from the mid-20th century but set in a world closer to the Song Dynasty of the 13th century, with fantastical elements. It’s an incredible work of fantasy to be sure. I didn’t love it, and it isn’t because it wasn’t good. It was good. All the characters, but especially Rin, were so complex and interesting and flawed. It was so fresh and new and I’ve never read anything like it. But it was a little too dark for my taste. It was a little too gory. The atrocities were more gruesome and horrifying than I wanted to read about. I’m not very knowledgable about Chinese and Japanese history, so it’s possible that some of the atrocities described by Kuang are inspired by actual events, in which case I think it’s important to learn about those things, however, I didn’t necessarily pick up this book because I wanted to read 101 ways humans can desecrate other humans. That being said, I’ll probably still read the rest of them.

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_mariaen_'s review against another edition

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dark sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Sometimes the main character’s choices made me want to throw the book out the window but otherwise the books really good

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murielreads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Jajajajajaja. Que acabo de leer?? Alguien me lo puede o quiere explicar? Este libro se sintió como si estuviera viendo una fucking película. Es demasiado épico para ponerlo en palabras. De principio a fin me sentí en una montaña rusa emocional y ahora que acabo de terminarlo la cabeza me da vueltas a 1000 kilómetros por minuto sin parar. No sé que más decir. Me saco el sombrero ante Rebecca.

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bergha1998's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This is a heavy book from start to finish. Definitely one where you need to read the trigger warnings. I enjoyed Rin as a main character quite a lot. She is all things resilience and tenacity. The horrors of this book, mostly because of war and genocide were a lot for me to handle. I couldn’t see myself ever rereading it, but I’m glad I did once.

Fantasy, Historical, Found Family

“I believe in gods as a cultural reference. As metaphors. As things we refer to keep us safe because we can’t do anything else, as manifestations of our neuroses. But not as things that I truly trust are real. Not as things that hold actual consequence for the universe.”

“Children ceased to be children when you put a sword in their hands. When you taught them to fight a war, then you armed them and put them on the front lines, they were not children anymore. They were soldiers.”

“It was, simply, what happened when one race decided that the other was insignificant.”

“And if your opponent was not human, if your opponent was a cockroach, what did it matter how many of them you killed?”

“If you were the victim, what could you say to make your tormentor recognize you as human? How did you get your enemy to recognize you at all?”

Content Warnings

joeynystrom's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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nushka_online's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

3.75-4.0 stars

I enjoyed the Poppy War and devoured it rather quickly but I did have some things I didn't love so much. I read about half of this as an e-book and the other half I listened to the audiobook, switching frequently between the two and the narrator also did a great job.

I see a lot of comments comparing Book One to The Name of the Wind, initially I saw some minor similarities but I felt as though the school thing was a fairly common trop in fantasy, especially YA/middle-grade so it didn't feel that comparable, but admittedly nearly everything to do with Jiang/Lore brought The Name of the Wind to mind. The tone shift after they leave Sinegard was a little sudden, Rin's relationship/feelings towards Altan felt a little inconsistent too but maybe that's understandable given circumstances.

I also felt that since it was a fantasy, but almost everything had a direct real world equivalent (aside from Speer which was Taiwan but only barely), I felt a lot less drawn in by the world-building than I normally am in fantasy. That being said, I still enjoyed the historic parallels, though at some points I was like oh so that's literally just the Art of War, or recounting

Spoiler

near exact accounts of the Rape of Nanjing. Some of Venka's accounts of the relaxation house felt a little much for me

. I do recommend checking for trigger/content warnings because there were some graphic descriptions. Also, just a small pet peeve is using a lot of modern swears/language in fantasy seems to ruin immersion for me. I'm glad they had a few terms of their own, but sometimes the language was jarringly modern.

I still found it an easy book to get into and enjoy, although there were some scenes especially listening to the audiobook made me uncomfortable, and I did enjoy most of the characters. I like (view spoiler) I have somewhat mixed feelings about Rin and Altan's characters but I do like how their choices were portrayed and I'm interested to see how the story progresses in the next two

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k_o's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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