Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - The Poppy War

Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

276 reviews

amirahazhar's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-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

5.0

I know I'm late to the party but I just finished this today. Inspired largely by 20th century Chinese history (think the Opium Wars, but with ancient gods and mythological creatures), the countries of the Poppy War have clear parallels to China, Japan, and Europe. In the early 20th century, China's Qing Dynasty fell, ending thousands of years of rule by emperors thought to be the sons of heaven.

Politics and military strategy play a major role in this story. R.F.Kuang also touched a lot on classism, colorism, colonialism, and the collateral damage of unnecessary wars that span through generations, which I appreciated.

I can't recommend this book enough. To say that I'm blown away would be an understatement, especially owing to the fact that this is R.F. Kuang's debut novel, and she started writing it at 19! So excited to read the rest of this trilogy.

Content Warnings

_mariaen_'s review against another edition

Go to review page

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

Content Warnings

murielreads's review against another edition

Go to review page

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.

Content Warnings

bergha1998's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

space_corgi's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional sad 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

4.5

Still reeling. I’ll have to come back and write a full review later.

Content Warnings

_justjess's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

4.5

Content Warnings

eateat's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

3.75

I finally finished this after dropping it about 100 times. Yayy.

1st time I read it, dropped it during the Sinegard arc. 2nd time, still the same. 3rd time, I literally didn't even reach the school before dropping it. 4th times a charm I suppose. This time, I gave the audiobook a try, which made things infinitely better.

The plot:
If gradual yet instant tragedy was a thing. This was it. We went from oh, Rin is an orphan with an abusive family to, oh she's now in a colorist school and city where your family rank determines how you're treated to OH! THERES A WHOLE ASS MASSACRE HAPPENING AND ANOTHER AND THEN GENOCIDE?!! MASS KILLING. There's evil by humans, and then there's evil with the help of the gods. I'm not sure which I would classify as worse. I can't even compare them bc of how bad they all are.

If you want to give this story a try. For the love of being sane, READ THE CONTENT WARNINGS. The author based some horrible things in her book from things that happened in history irl. There's differing opinions online if you want to check it out.

Characters:
The main character made almost every choice I wouldnt but hey, I didn't hate her so that's that. Runin had to live with hatred and in power, her hatred grew.
I will say, the introduction of characters after the academy arc was a little wonky. We went from knowing this whole group of professors and students, to them being discarded and new characters being introduced.

Overall:
Good book. Takes a while to get into (as you can tell). The characters can be annoying sometimes but thats probably just me bc I'm used to reading books where the MC is babied. Here, she didn't get any special treatment at allll. Give this a try if you like slow paced stories.

Content Warnings