Reviews tagging 'Genocide'

The Burning God by R.F. Kuang

178 reviews

bookbelle5_17's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-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? Yes

5.0

Review of The Burning God

By: RF Kuang

            Rin and Nezha are now enemies and Kitay is her anchor, who keeps her from losing her humanity.  But it isn’t easy when your enemy has his own water God and not all your allies trust you nor do you trust your own capabilities.

            This is an amazing end for fantastic trilogy.  The confrontation between Rin and Nezha is complicated mess that shows how things aren’t so black and white.  The whole trilogy has explored this with this war showing there’s no villains, just people who think they are in the right.  You can understand Rin and Nezha’s rationalizations and you actually feel sorry for him, despite seeing things through Rin.  We also see the consequences of Rin and Nezha’s Civil war and how it effects the people.  Rin rationalizes that this war and if they side with the Republic they deserve to be punished.  At the same time Rin wants and misses Nezha, and the pair can’t seem to kill each other even though the want to.  Her relationship to Kitay gets shaken up as Rin gets closer to her fight with Nezha.  He is a character that keeps Rin human and prevents her from relying on her fire power first.  They are closer, because they’re anchored, but often clash on how to handle the war.  It tears their relationship apart.  I love how we learn about the Trifecta and its history.  We get to see them in action as we see the full scope of their powers.  There were a lot of great battle scenes between individual fights that involve God power.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Religious bigotry, Slavery, Grief, Death, Genocide, Body horror, Classism, Drug use, Cannibalism, Colonisation, Cursing, War, Torture, and Violence

thebookaholic's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-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

4.0

WOW what a conclusion to this series!! I'm surprised to say that this was my least favourite of the three books, but it's still a solid 4 star read which imo, says a lot about the series as a whole and Kuang's insane writing abilities.

This book felt so much bigger that the others did, with the plot zooming out in a way that was more distant from the characters and comprehensive of Nikara, and yet I don't think it lost any of the character depth and development. I felt that overall, this book had a few pacing struggles comparatively, especially in the middle section of the book with

Spoiler

the Trifecta

specifically, but I think this conclusion was so so fitting for the story that Kuang was trying to tell. 

After all,

Spoiler

The first rule of the Cike is that they cull, and Rin had already been to the Chuluu Korith...

Would I recommend? ABSOLUTELY

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Animal cruelty, Child death, Genocide, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, Torture, Violence, War, Racism, Animal death, Death, Rape, Religious bigotry, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Cannibalism, and Fire/Fire injury

malwa's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Violence, War, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, Racism, Genocide, Drug abuse, and Addiction

Moderate: Animal death, Animal cruelty, and Body horror

marinasjd's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Self harm, Death, Addiction, Alcohol, Grief, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Colonisation, Cursing, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Suicide, Child abuse, and Animal cruelty

ltc's review against another edition

dark medium-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Animal death, Blood, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Body horror, Addiction, Genocide, Vomit, War, Cannibalism, Drug abuse, and Injury/Injury detail

abhirupa's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

4.0

I'm so sad. Like truly. Everyone said this book was going to be incredibly sad, including RF Kuang herself, but I didn't fully grasp how much it would hurt until I finished it. I feel like I knew what was going to happen at the end, like since the very first book because of how much emphasis Kuang puts on the cyclic nature of war, violence, and trauma. However, the execution really truly took my breath away. 
Despite the masterful way Kuang wrapped up Rin, Kitay, Nezha and Venka's stories, my main complaint about this book is that the other plotlines fell flat. I was especially disappointed by how the Trifecta's storyline ended because I felt like it was super abrupt. I also didn't really understand the whole plotline with Hanelai, Ziya, and Riga because I felt like the Speer storyline was already fully developed and the additions in this book just made that whole situation more confusing. Also, there were some allusions made to Rin's parentage and I think I kind of understand what Kuang was trying to get at, but I didn't like the lack of catharsis about that question. Like if the point was that Rin was just supposed to be a random, unnamed, non-fated Speerly child who had this role of being the last Speerly thrust on her, then there were whole conversations in this book that detracted from that message. But if her parentage was actually supposed to mean something like in terms of fate, it wasn't executed super well in my opinion. 
Regardless, this trilogy was such an insane ride. There's so much to take from it, I'm definitely going to have to read all of it again with a finer focus on the details. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Death, Genocide, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, and War

laraveliants's review against another edition

challenging dark 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

5.0

“Take what you want, it said. I’ll hate you for it. But I’ll love you forever. I can’t help but love you.

Ruin me, ruin us, and I’ll let you.”

this book feels like getting stabbed a million times but you can’t die

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Genocide, Death, Drug use, War, Xenophobia, Torture, Murder, Racism, Violence, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Cannibalism

brianneh's review

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Genocide, Sexual violence, Drug abuse, Suicide, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Torture, War, Blood, Child death, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Violence, Classism, Drug use, Xenophobia, Murder, Death, Rape, Gore, Religious bigotry, and Sexual assault

sun_ie's review against another edition

adventurous tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Violence, Murder, and War

Moderate: Drug use and Genocide

Minor: Rape, Religious bigotry, and Addiction

0shelfcontrol's review against another edition

adventurous 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? It's complicated

5.0

What an epic end to an epic series. Read this series if you want the characters to feel real to you. I say this because they are all extremely morally grey; sometimes driven by ego and other times duty. I am heartbroken by the series end as well as how it ended, however, I also know that this is the only way it makes sense. It was inevitable, but still there’s that part of me that wishes there was some sort of miracle. I’m still processing, and probably will always be.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Genocide, Colonisation, Addiction, War, Trafficking, Torture, Suicide, Sexism, Self harm, Rape, Panic attacks/disorders, Murder, Child death, Child abuse, Racism, Misogyny, Medical trauma, Animal death, Gore, Drug use, Blood, Violence, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Excrement, and Drug abuse

Moderate: Infertility