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A review by aforestofbooks
The Burning God by R.F. Kuang
adventurous
challenging
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
4.75
What the actual fuck
*ahem*
I have had time to think and process the ending to this trilogy, and I know people are expecting a review that is somewhat coherent, so I will try my best.
It took me a while to read this book, not because it was slow-paced or difficult to read, but because I was dreading the end. I've somehow managed to avoid spoilers for this trilogy (ignoring the one spoiler I saw because I was googling something), but despite that, I knew the conclusion to this series would hurt me, and I kind of had an idea where things were headed, so my hesitance to finish was understandable.
This book kept me on edge because Rin was constantly on edge worrying about Nezha coming out to get her. Nezha was a very interesting character in this series. I started off hating him, then growing to like him, then kind of side-eyeing him/not trusting him, to hating him again, and then watching as he tried to pick up the pieces of a broken, scattered Republic. At the end, you realize that they're all just kids put into situations and forced to make horrible decisions. I don't know if you can really love Nezha or Rin all that much as characters, but I think they're both accurate portrayals of how people would respond/react to similar circumstances. It reminds me in many ways of Palestine and the PA versus Hamas.
One character I can't help to love and cherish is Kitay. I love him with all my soul. He's that little bit of light in all the darkness, the stability to Rin's chaos. He was funnier in The Dragon Republic, but this book is so much darker and grimmer. It feels like everyone is marching to their deaths the second you turn to the first page. I love his intelligence, his ability to strategize and plan ahead, and the way he struggles so much with the morality of war and resistance. He feels like a real person. I think as the reader, he's us in many ways. What I especially loved about him was his relationship with Rin. They are really opposites of each other, but they compliment each other so well. You can feel the love they have for each other, but it's purely platonic. It's just so good, so ugh, so sdfkdsgjdsklf. The little moments we have of them together, holding each other, touching each other, watching out for each other made the ending hurt even more. As we see Rin slowly start to lose her sanity and turn on the people she loves, I had a feeling I knew where things were headed. The fight scene at the end was something that had been long coming since the beginning. But those last looks Rin and Kitay share with each other before the end will forever be etched into my brain.
<blockquote>"Do it.
Take what you want. 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."</blockquote>
I honestly want to curl into a ball and cry just thinking about it. My only consolation is that they both went together because if Kitay had been the only one to die, I would have thrown this book across the room.
A lot happens in this book, especially when I think back to where this book started and where things ended. I liked seeing more of southern and eastern Nikara and watching as Rin comes to accept where she's from and fight for her people. But Rin is a difficult character to enjoy. There's quite a bit of repetitiveness and not as much development in the ways you would expect. She keeps trusting the wrong people and getting screwed over. She doesn't make the best decisions. And while Kitay is there to be reasonable and cool-headed, Rin does call most of the shots. When I think about the trauma Rin has been through and how paranoid she got by the end of this book, and how fragile her victory was, I knew things couldn't stay the way they were. There was no happy ending in her future. The only option was for Rin to destroy everything, let the world burn, and succumb to the fire herself. But what was the point if nothing was left.
The ending made me feel so hopeless. And I think that hopelessness is something we're all familiar with right now as we watch oppression and dehumanization take place right before our eyes. Rin remembering Kitay's words–"it's a long march to liberation"–and realizing that sometimes you have to give in and sacrifice yourself with the hope someone else will carry along the light of liberation, is just a stab in the heart. How many times have our people resisted against the white colonizer? Only for the oppressor to be replaced with a new oppressor, to colonize us in a different way? How many times have we won, but realized that the oppressor has too much control of the world for us to survive without relying on them? How many times have we had to compromise, "bend the knee", give in a little, just to live? The offer Nezha gave Rin was horrifying. To be unable to use her powers, to be a test subject for the rest of her life, to be unable to carry on the traditions and history, to be wiped out of existence from memory as well as life. We've seen this done over and over again by colonizers to Indigenous populations around the world. We're seeing it now in Gaza.
I hate the ending of this book BECAUSE it's too real. Most of us pick up books like this and want the ending to be hopeful and somewhat happy. But there was no way for Rin, Kitay, and Nezha to move on together from this. It boils my blood to imagine Nikara under Hesperian rule again, and it hurts because I know this has happened in our world. And it might happen again and again and again. I can't help wondering when this cycle will be broken. If it can ever be broken. How long is the long game going to last? I wish I knew the answers to these questions.
Picking up this series now was probably the best decision I've ever made. The emotions I went through reading this series would not have been the same if I had read this 4-5 years earlier. I will cherish this series forever and hopefully reread it again one day. My only complaint is Rebecca not being as vocal on Palestine. I had high expectations of her after reading Babel, but now having read this trilogy, I'm shocked she hasn't said anything about what we're seeing happening in Gaza. Especially the way she word for word has described everything we're seeing live right now: the bombings, torture, rape, dismemberment, decayed corpses, starvation, illness etc. As I sit here, writing this, I just remembered back in The Poppy War when the Federation gave the Nikara barrels of salt that contained some kind of explosive powder, which exploded after they had started distributing the salt to the civilians and how that eerily mimics what Israel has done to Lebanon just a couple days ago. The parallels I keep seeing between fiction and reality...I just wish all the authors I loved used their platforms to speak out, especially those who are less likely to suffer from the consequences because of how much money they make their publishers.
4.75/5 stars. Cannot wait to reread this trilogy one day.
*ahem*
I have had time to think and process the ending to this trilogy, and I know people are expecting a review that is somewhat coherent, so I will try my best.
It took me a while to read this book, not because it was slow-paced or difficult to read, but because I was dreading the end. I've somehow managed to avoid spoilers for this trilogy (ignoring the one spoiler I saw because I was googling something), but despite that, I knew the conclusion to this series would hurt me, and I kind of had an idea where things were headed, so my hesitance to finish was understandable.
This book kept me on edge because Rin was constantly on edge worrying about Nezha coming out to get her. Nezha was a very interesting character in this series. I started off hating him, then growing to like him, then kind of side-eyeing him/not trusting him, to hating him again, and then watching as he tried to pick up the pieces of a broken, scattered Republic. At the end, you realize that they're all just kids put into situations and forced to make horrible decisions. I don't know if you can really love Nezha or Rin all that much as characters, but I think they're both accurate portrayals of how people would respond/react to similar circumstances. It reminds me in many ways of Palestine and the PA versus Hamas.
One character I can't help to love and cherish is Kitay. I love him with all my soul. He's that little bit of light in all the darkness, the stability to Rin's chaos. He was funnier in The Dragon Republic, but this book is so much darker and grimmer. It feels like everyone is marching to their deaths the second you turn to the first page. I love his intelligence, his ability to strategize and plan ahead, and the way he struggles so much with the morality of war and resistance. He feels like a real person. I think as the reader, he's us in many ways. What I especially loved about him was his relationship with Rin. They are really opposites of each other, but they compliment each other so well. You can feel the love they have for each other, but it's purely platonic. It's just so good, so ugh, so sdfkdsgjdsklf. The little moments we have of them together, holding each other, touching each other, watching out for each other made the ending hurt even more. As we see Rin slowly start to lose her sanity and turn on the people she loves, I had a feeling I knew where things were headed. The fight scene at the end was something that had been long coming since the beginning. But those last looks Rin and Kitay share with each other before the end will forever be etched into my brain.
<blockquote>"Do it.
Take what you want. 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."</blockquote>
I honestly want to curl into a ball and cry just thinking about it. My only consolation is that they both went together because if Kitay had been the only one to die, I would have thrown this book across the room.
A lot happens in this book, especially when I think back to where this book started and where things ended. I liked seeing more of southern and eastern Nikara and watching as Rin comes to accept where she's from and fight for her people. But Rin is a difficult character to enjoy. There's quite a bit of repetitiveness and not as much development in the ways you would expect. She keeps trusting the wrong people and getting screwed over. She doesn't make the best decisions. And while Kitay is there to be reasonable and cool-headed, Rin does call most of the shots. When I think about the trauma Rin has been through and how paranoid she got by the end of this book, and how fragile her victory was, I knew things couldn't stay the way they were. There was no happy ending in her future. The only option was for Rin to destroy everything, let the world burn, and succumb to the fire herself. But what was the point if nothing was left.
The ending made me feel so hopeless. And I think that hopelessness is something we're all familiar with right now as we watch oppression and dehumanization take place right before our eyes. Rin remembering Kitay's words–"it's a long march to liberation"–and realizing that sometimes you have to give in and sacrifice yourself with the hope someone else will carry along the light of liberation, is just a stab in the heart. How many times have our people resisted against the white colonizer? Only for the oppressor to be replaced with a new oppressor, to colonize us in a different way? How many times have we won, but realized that the oppressor has too much control of the world for us to survive without relying on them? How many times have we had to compromise, "bend the knee", give in a little, just to live? The offer Nezha gave Rin was horrifying. To be unable to use her powers, to be a test subject for the rest of her life, to be unable to carry on the traditions and history, to be wiped out of existence from memory as well as life. We've seen this done over and over again by colonizers to Indigenous populations around the world. We're seeing it now in Gaza.
I hate the ending of this book BECAUSE it's too real. Most of us pick up books like this and want the ending to be hopeful and somewhat happy. But there was no way for Rin, Kitay, and Nezha to move on together from this. It boils my blood to imagine Nikara under Hesperian rule again, and it hurts because I know this has happened in our world. And it might happen again and again and again. I can't help wondering when this cycle will be broken. If it can ever be broken. How long is the long game going to last? I wish I knew the answers to these questions.
Picking up this series now was probably the best decision I've ever made. The emotions I went through reading this series would not have been the same if I had read this 4-5 years earlier. I will cherish this series forever and hopefully reread it again one day. My only complaint is Rebecca not being as vocal on Palestine. I had high expectations of her after reading Babel, but now having read this trilogy, I'm shocked she hasn't said anything about what we're seeing happening in Gaza. Especially the way she word for word has described everything we're seeing live right now: the bombings, torture, rape, dismemberment, decayed corpses, starvation, illness etc. As I sit here, writing this, I just remembered back in The Poppy War when the Federation gave the Nikara barrels of salt that contained some kind of explosive powder, which exploded after they had started distributing the salt to the civilians and how that eerily mimics what Israel has done to Lebanon just a couple days ago. The parallels I keep seeing between fiction and reality...I just wish all the authors I loved used their platforms to speak out, especially those who are less likely to suffer from the consequences because of how much money they make their publishers.
4.75/5 stars. Cannot wait to reread this trilogy one day.