[I was sent an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review]
The Poppy War is a Chinese-inspired military fantasy novel following a teenage orphan named Rin from her admission to a strict and elitist military academy to all the events that ensue soon after. It relies heavily on folklore and mythology elements, as well as more recent history such as the second Sino-Japanese war. Despite the young age of the protagonist, though, this is NOT a young adult book: it has heavy grimdark tones, it deals with heavy topics such as war crimes and genocide and it isn't a hopeful, light-hearted story at all. It's stunning nonetheless, but I suggest you keep your heads up - particularly in the second and third part. I'm still baffled at how solid this book feels, especially for a debut novel: if I didn't know it already, I'd say that it was written by a way more mature author! The only reasons I gave it 4.5/5 stars instead of a full 5/5 is because the context feels a bit disjointed between the first and the second part; both were, as I said before, solid and well-written contexts, but they didn't transition as smoothly into one another as I would've wanted. Overall, I was thrilled to read this book and ended up finishing it in less than three days; I recommend it wholeheartedly, although perhaps just to my older audience.

Rodeada de grandes alabanzas y seleccionada entre las “mejores lecturas del mes” de diversas webs y tiendas como Amazon o Barnes & Noble, la novela debut de Rebecca F. Kuang acaba de aterrizar hace unas semanas en las librerías. A la vista de las primeras reviews en Goodreads lo cierto es que el título está gustando mucho, y eso me picó la suficiente curiosidad como para lanzarme a ella. Eso a pesar de que hacia un tiempo que no leía una obra con la pura fantasía como principal reclamo.

“The Poppy War” sin embargo cuenta con un importante e interesante componente de worldbuilding que rápidamente me trajo a la memoria las novelas de Ken Liu. Tanto en la aún inconclusa trilogía “La Dinastía del Diente de León” como en la ópera prima de R.F. Kuang (que, aunque cuando empecé a leer no lo sabía, también es la inicio de otra trilogía), las bases están inspiradas de manera muy marcada en historia oriental. En el caso que nos ocupa, la autora reconoce que se ha inspirado en los acontecimientos ocurridos en la Masacre de Nanjing, también conocida como la Violación de Nanjing, ocurrida en 1937 en la ciudad del mismo nombre de la república china. El libro cuenta con bastante carga explicativa sobre la situación del mundo donde se sitúa: orígenes, momento actual, sucesos que afectan a los personajes, etc. pero todo ello muy bien introducido, sin resultar cargante y excesivo, y consiguiendo que el interés por parte del lector se incremente conforme van sucediéndose los eventos.

Entro en materia. La novela cuenta con dos mitades CLARAMENTE diferenciadas. Quiero ponerlo en mayúsculas porque partiendo casi a la mitad la novela, la segunda parte es un libro completamente distinto a lo que podemos leer en la primera.


“The Poppy War” se centra en la historia de Rin, una joven de piel negra que consigue superar, de manera inesperada para todo el mundo, los exámenes de acceso a escuela militar y de artes marciales de Nikan. Procedente de Rooster, una pobre provincia del sur del continente, Rin encontrara dificultades desde el mismo momento en que sale de los límites de su ciudad de origen. Por si todo esto no fuera lo suficientemente tópico allí descubrirá que tiene dentro de sí más poder del que nunca jamás pudo imaginar (ayudada también por esas “poppies” que dan título a la novela y que la sirven de droga). Y sí, encontrara algún profesor que, alejado de toda crítica y saltándose todas las normas, la ayudará a dar salida a todo ese poder.

Este último párrafo bien podría ser la sinopsis no de esta, sino de casi cualquier novela young adult de las cientos (¿miles?) que pueblan las estanterías de todo el mundo. Y es que, lamentablemente, poco bueno puedo decir sobre la trama de la novela durante esta primera mitad. Floja para el lector que busque algo distinto; demasiado tópica para quien esté acostumbrado a historias más juveniles.

En este punto es cuando la vena grimdark se hizo gigante en la mente de Rebecca F. Kuang y provocó un cambio casi completo en el tono de “The Poppy War”. Donde antes todo era una escuela con jóvenes luchando por ser el más molón de la clase, ahora Rin se ve envuelta en una auténtica guerra por el poder, en la defensa de territorios a toda costa y en el descubrimiento real de su poder. Todo ello acompañado de crudas descripciones, violencia por momentos desenfrenada y unos personajes que la rodean sin ningún tipo de piedad. Si me permitís la comparativa, donde antes todo era juvenil ahora todo es pornográfico. Ese choque y cambio también supone un cambio en la personalidad y la manera de afrontar las cosas de Rin, algo que se agradece en la coherencia del libro.


Resultado de imagen de the poppy war kuang

Una vez llegado al final mi pregunta es: ¿ha merecido la pena leer casi trescientas páginas para poder disfrutar de una segunda mitad más que aceptable? Mi respuesta final creo que se inclina más por el no que por el sí. No os voy a engañar: durante esa primera mitad hubo más de una ocasión que estuve a punto de dejar el libro a un lado. Hay mucho pendiente en la estantería para ser leído. Aguanté y lo pase bien con la segunda mitad, en una especie de recompensa para los valientes que hayan podido aguantar. Sin embargo, también tengo la sensación de que ese premio no compensa el esfuerzo invertido y que, planeada de otra manera, “The Poppy War” podría haber tenido mucho más potencial. La historia y la trama están ahí. La forma de llevarlo a cabo, sin embargo, bien hubiera merecido una vuelta de tuerca.

De cara a la planificada segunda entrega, preferiré esperar a que alguien se la lea por completo y me cuente si se han solucionado estos problemas, dado que no me importaría dar una nueva oportunidad a esta saga de amapolas.

The book is set in a fantasy world, in the Nikara Empire, who have an uneasy truce with their neighbour and former occupying power the Mugen Federation. It follows Rin, a young girl from the rural south of Nikara, as she tries to gain entry to the most prestigious school in the country – Sinegard – to avoid an arranged marriage, and then her studies there and development into a military leader. When she arrives at Sinegard, however, she discovers that things are not as straightforward as they seem, and there are powers in the world that seem like the stuff of legend, rather than reason.

One of the things I loved about this book was that it wasn’t set in a Western-style world, but instead in a country which closely paralleled China, and Mugen playing the part of Japan. I only know the faintest bits of history for that area of the world, but I was able to identify certain parallels – some stories were taken directly from Chinese history, such as the monk who sat in a cave and stared at a wall for seven years, listening to the ants scream. Even the description of the woodcut image accompanying the story is recognisable to the one I have seen, and this close parallel I think made the world feel more solid for its description, although it did raise some questions in later parts of the book. Mostly, however, I loved the different voice you had as a result of this setting, and it was so rich and delightful and refreshing to read.

I would say there are trigger warnings – drug use and self-harm for the majority of the book, but in the latter third we are exposed to the extreme atrocities of war. This seemed to come a little out of nowhere for me. Whilst the book had dealt with serious issues, and death, and it hadn’t shied away from discussing war and bloodshed, the chapter dealing with these atrocities took things so much further, made the narrative so much darker. It was unexpected, but narratively it worked for me in that these atrocities would always be unexpected – no-one in their right mind would expect anything of this nature. This marks a turning point for the characters as well, and you see questions of sanity, morality and the varying nature of good and evil. Whilst the first two thirds of the book are socio-political, the latter turns into a very dark narrative on sanity and war crimes which perhaps would not be too far away from Heart of Darkness in its depiction of what total immersion in aggression can do to you psychologically. Equally, given how closely the book has followed Chinese history and is so anchored in this world, these atrocities do raise some questions for me about how much is drawn from reality at this stage, which perhaps makes things that little bit more uncomfortable than they already are. On the author’s blog, she states it’s influenced by the 1937 Rape of Nanjing, and I find her thoughts very interesting. This level of understanding of Chinese history that grounds her book is why it works so well, and why it feels so real. The author is sensitive to the triggering material as well, and gives specific chapter warnings in her blog post – I highly recommend reading it.

This appears to be the first of at least two books, so whilst the end resolves, it is not a neat ending, or one where you feel the characters have reached their full potential. The next book will be an interesting exploration of the repercussions from the first book, and I have no doubt, based on this, that they will be handled sensitively and with great care.

I am not sure whether this book is strictly a young adult book – I have seen some criticism levelled at it saying it is not, but I have also not seen anything suggesting that it is meant to be young adult. Perhaps this assumption was made based on the age of the main character. I think it is aimed at a crossover market, and it definitely would appeal to a huge range of readers. The narrative is strong and fluent, the pacing is extraordinary, and the issues and themes in it are meaty and handled well. I think Rin is a wonderful main character, flawed and rounded in so many ways, and I adored the setting and mythology that came from it. It was the book I hadn’t known I’d wanted, and it was like a breath of fresh air.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.  I alternated between this copy and the finished copy I purchased for myself.  This is a spoiler-free review.

Despite people saying this is a YA book it is absolutely not, please don’t be fooled by the YA-esque beginning.



I had been hearing so much about The Poppy War via social media and knew I had to try for a copy on Netgalley.  I began reading my digital ARC, made it a few chapters in, and bought the book. I can confidently say that this is one of the best books I’ve read this year.

I’m not really sure where to start with this book, and I mean that in the best way possible.  Kuang has written what is easily the best fantasy debut of the year so far, and I don’t see how other authors will be able to take that crown from her. The Poppy War is a brutal look at history through the lens of grimdark fantasy, and it is not for the faint of heart.  Here are the content warnings that the author has provided:

Self-harm
Suicide
Violent rape (off-screen, but described by a victim)
Sexual assault
Murder
Massacres
Brutalization
Mutilation
Torture
Substance abuse
Abuse
Emotional abuse
Physical abuse
Relationship abuse
Human experimentation
Chemical warfare
Genocide

Like I said, not for the faint of heart.  However, Kuang does not glorify this content, which is something I’ve spotted grimdark authors doing in the past.  You all may or may not know that the use of rape in fantasy is one of my major problems with the genre because it’s gratuitous and overused, so believe me when I say that every single choice she makes to include this content makes sense with the story.  Kuang bases much of the book on the Second Sino-Japanese War, and notable chapters include scenes inspired by the Rape of Nanking and Unit 731. Her drawing on real events adds to the gravity of the wartime atrocities committed in the book -- these things can happen, and have happened, in real life.  I went into The Poppy War knowing that such things were in the book, and I still struggled to read the notorious Chapter 21. I say all of this early on in my review because I think I would have really struggled if I didn’t know about the content beforehand, and I wanted to give a heads-up to other readers.

In terms of world building, Kuang does a great job of adding detail to the world without slowing down the narrative.  At 527 pages, The Poppy War is quite the tome and there just isn’t room for dumping information about the world and culture on the reader.  Because the book is based so heavily on China and Chinese history, the reader can fill in some of the gaps themselves, which is a smart way of handling world building and one of the reasons I love historically based fantasy.  The magic system makes sense, is well thought out, and is compelling. I really loved that magic doesn’t dominate the story, and when it comes into play it is more of a fact of the world than some mysterious force.  I can’t say too much here without spoilers, but I loved the fact that magic use is difficult, doesn’t come easily to users, and has consequences.

Now, onto our girl Rin.  I absolutely loved Rin as a character -- talk about a breath of fresh air.  The first thing of note about Rin is the fact that she is exactly what Kuang says she is.  So often in fantasy we get characters we’re told are clever, or strong, or badass, but they don’t turn out that way.  Rin is smart, fierce, determined, stubborn, sarcastic, and angry. This translates into the incredibly badass and flawed heroine that we are promised.  However, things don’t come easily to her and I think this is one of the best aspects of her characterisation -- she easily could have been a Mary Sue-esque character and its a testament to Kuang's writing that she is not. She works her ass off to achieve her goals and I absolutely love her for it.  She’s not necessarily someone I’d like to know in real life, but I loved reading about her and she’s one of my new favourite characters. I wish more authors would create incredible women like Rin.

I could seriously go on and on about this book, but I’ll cut it short here.  It is dark, it is brutal, but it is also well-crafted and a pleasure to read. If you’re interested in historical or military fantasy, strong female characters, books with minimal to no romance, strong friendships between characters (regardless of gender), or interesting magic systems, then I urge you to give The Poppy War a try.  Don’t miss out on one of the best books of 2018.

So, this was awesome. Such a relief too since I've had to DNF a few fantasies this year, most of which I was super pumped for. So much happens in this book that it almost feels like a trilogy unto itself, but the pace is quick throughout and I was never bored. The action scenes are so vividly written that it sometimes felt like a graphic novel, and I loved how layered and different the relationships between the characters were.

I feel like I don't want to say too much since this book is such a great, surprising journey I think it's best to go in knowing less, but trust the hype on this one. It's real.

The Poppy War is less a novel and more a paper-wrapped sucker-punch to the gut. You will think you are prepared, but you will not be. What starts as an almost Rothfuss-esque university story at a prestigious military academy, soon dissolves into an account of the worst things humanity is able to do to one another when the country is invaded.

Thanks for NetGalley for providing me an advanced free copy of this book. Ever since I heard about this book, I was dying to read it. I am a fan of magical worlds and fantasy, especially if its classified as adult fiction and not YA.

This book combines magic, Chinese culture and ancient Gods = Best combination ever.


It took me a while to get into the story, because the first third focused a lot on world building, but afterwards, the plot thickened and I raced right through till the end!

Definitely a 5-star read for me. The only flaw is that it's a part of a trilogy, so I'm going to wait patiently for the sequels...

Personal Thoughts (Spoilers?)

Magical China - The atmosphere in the book is heavily influenced by Chinese culture, which I find refreshing and innovative in Fantasy books. I have never read a book that included religious ceremonies that transcended into magic and opened portals to other realms, so it was a very interesting experience. it's worth noting that there is no magic in the first third of the book. I almost had to re-read the summary, to make sure I am reading the correct book, but once it's revealed... Everything bursts into flames.

Orphan heroine - Like many other fictional heroines, Rin, has no loving family. She doesn't know her origins and has no attachments in the world. Being an orphan makes her commit some very questionable actions that escalate as the book progresses. It makes sense, in a way, cause if she had a good support system, she wouldn't get herself in all that mess, but then, there would be no book, right?

Destiny vs Predestination - One of my favorite parts in the book focuses on this theme. It raises some questions about free will and the power of people. Are we free to do as we please or is everything written in the stars? This book has a unique answer to this question.

Value of life -The second half of the book is set during war time. As readers, we are not spared from the atrocious and vivid descriptions of death and battle. The author wants to shock us and show us the brutality of war. We learn that in every war, there are no winners or loses, since both sides lose so much...

This book is very recommended. It's a highly enjoyable and addictive read! Can't wait for the next one in the series.

Debut date: May 1, 2018

Epic & thought provoking! The Poppy War is a feminist fantasy spilling over with adventure and heart-stopping drama. The prose is both beautiful & devastating and I've no doubt this will feature on countless Best of 2018 lists by the close of the year.

As much as I adored this book it is not for the faint of heart. Many scenes were incredible graphic and harrowing, but the author handles the subject matter with immense skill and sensitivity. I look forward to following her career for years to come!

I received this book from NetGalley for purposes of a review.

3.5 stars, rounded up for sheer ambition and as a debut novel.

This novel follows a protagonist, a young orphaned woman Fang Runin (Rin) as she applies to a military academy, trains to become a proficient warrior and commander and subsequently, takes part in a terrifying, genocidal war. It's a little bit like Ender's Game, only much more realistic, without the homophobia and with a lot more graphically described aftermath of torture.

(If you'll permit me a comparison: if Ender is like Buffy, where the aliens/vampires disappear into dust, this novel is True Blood, and the enemies as well as friends splatter all over.)

This is a hugely impressive project, a fast paced, no-holds-barred, grim story which starts off innocently enough and then doesn't flinch from taking the horrible premise (it occurs in the aftermath of one genocide already) to its logical and historical conclusion (and beyond it). At the same time, it's a reminder for me that grimdark is not my favourite genre.

I think a strength of this novel is that it:
a) does not use genocide to talk about something else - it uses genocide to talk about genocide (and that's my rule of thumb about "does my book need to contain this triggering atrocity")
b) does not excuse its monstrosities, but neither does it flinch from depicting them fully
c) is palpably furious but doesn't romanticise rage and violence.

All the same, I found myself uncertain whether the extent of graphic description of violence was warranted. It was largely realistic, based on what I've read about the events it is modelled after (though, granted, the scale in the novel seems a little larger and the massacre - more thorough and occurring with less preamble). Still, I am not certain if the artistic effect achieved by going into the details is worth it, and whether it becomes more or less affecting. Does it honour the memory of those who really died, to model a fictional narrative so closely upon their suffering, or does it turn it into entertainment, yet another tragedy for the readers to be shocked by, a form of misery and torture porn? Obviously, the author has thought about it, but I'm still uncertain, and I think each reader has to decide for themselves; I personally wouldn't have been less emotionally affected by a more circumspect story. I think I could have been as angry without gazing; I'm not sure if what I did by reading was witnessing or gaping.

This novel asks a lot of valuable and important questions, including about what makes people commit unimaginable horrors upon one another. It doesn't really answer them (or only partly), and I suppose it remains to be seen whether the following volumes will. I suppose that will also clarify, for me, whether the extent of graphic depiction was ultimately gratuitous or necessary.

The one caveat I have: I didn't like the ostensible connection between race/ethnicity and magical ability.

In addition, this is just a personal preference, but I do wish novels that use history to this extent would contain more information at the end, describing the research and informing the readers about the background they may be unfamiliar with. I knew enough to know what to google, but not everyone might.

I would like to write a long essay about the literary pros and cons of this book but what really mattered was the pleasure I had in reading this book.
An entertaining and wonderful fantasy with a lot of world building that reminded me of Judge Dee mysteries (I love that books).
The book is complex and easy to read at same time as you are so enthralled that you just want to read more.
One of the best fantasy I read in a long time.
It's highly recommended to whoever wants to read a fantasy novel that gives you a lot of pleasure in reading it.
Many thanks to HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction and Netgalley for the ARC.

‪The Poppy War by R F Kuang https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/blog/2018/5/14/the-poppy-war-by-r-f-kuang‬

Fantasy by definition being genre we tend to decide that certain tropes mean that the story obviously must be an x, y or z plot. We know the theme and expect the story to run along the same lines. For me the best stories are those that subvert or build upon these well-trodden ideas and gives us a fresh perspective. In this fantastic debut what appears at first to be a story of a young teenager discovering magic and fighting the prejudices of her society becomes a much bigger epic tale examining war and its consequences.

You’ll be hard-pressed to not feel supportive of Rin our main character the story focuses on. As a young woman she is ‘fostered’ by the local village opium dealers who believe she will make a fine young bride/bribe for the local middle-aged single government official. Rin finds just one single way out – she must pass her local exam and get herself a free scholarship into the nation’s best school at Sineguard. There she can find the skills to make a future for itself. It’s not too spoilerish to find that after a brutal few months of cramming that she passes and then finds herself the only non-noble in her year. In this academy skills such as Combat, Strategy and even Medicine are covered to make the students into the best soldiers but Rin’s temperament and approach to life attracts her to the Academy’s less than salubrious Master of Lore Jiang who feels Rin is a prime candidate to learn about shamanism where drugs do work…to show you what reality really comprises or to bring the humans to the attention of the local Pantheon of Gods.

The Poppy War almost like it’s title in this first third is deceptively beautiful. Rin is a hard-working student; there is the standard teenage banter and even a local school bully and a hostile teacher to face while in Jiang we have a friendly slightly stoned mentor guiding Rin to a better understanding. Cheering Rin on as she develops her confidence and fights back is a joy; but this is not Hogwarts and while the school setting is an excellent way to smuggle in world building explaining the social strata and history of the Nikaran people and their enemies the reader starts to notice that ultimately this school turns people into weapons for the state. The culture is one of competition; Rin is happy to burn her own skin to stay awake for exams; Students are encouraged to fight and maim each other, and the magic can just as easily send you mad as give you new insights. Rin arrives just as war with the historic enemies in Mugen becomes a talking point. By the time this first third of the book ends we understand the approaching conflict and find Rin’s future is closely involved with the battle to come.

The second part of the book explores Rin joining a secretive division in the Empire known as the Cike now managed by one of Rin’s school heroes - Altan This small but deadly group is now tasked with a major defence against the Muginese forces on their way to invade the country. Rin must learn how her powers can bolster the group, but she finds she shares far more in common with Altan than she ever dared hoped but at the same time finds her destiny is one that will potentially cause far more death and destruction than her teachers ever hoped for.

This is a hard story to describe and it’s a testament to Kuang’s skill as an author that that school setting allows you to understand the nature of the country, it’s power structures and magic systems. All done smartly as lessons or conversations between various school factions so that it never feels like pure exposition and always serves the plot at the time; the pace of the story never feels to have been slowed down either. Just as Rin learns how the world works so does the reader and once Rin leaves her school as wartime requires her to join the Cike we understand their role and potentially how her magical skills can aid her people. In many ways the reader can be reassured with classic signs of fantasy – the motley mercenaries with amazing skills; the noble but tragic squad commander but slowly we also get these almost deconstructed. Our mercenaries are not simply mavericks but people to whom magical abilities are having huge psychological impacts on; the noble Empire is riven with politics and feuding and is the aim to protect your country or to just finally avenge the results of the last war?

Kuang has created some fascinating characters that appear often as one thing only to turn into the virtual opposite over the story. Enemies can become friends, the mad can be sane and the noble can be ruthless. It’s tempting to call this grimdark but for me that title is almost a genre that delights in showing off moral ambiguity and indulging in the joy of violence. Here violence is shown as ugly, immoral and often perpetrated by all sides There is no joy being taken in the death and destruction we are witnessing which gets darker and more graphic. For me this is an epic fantasy war story examine how a society creates war and the soldiers to fight it.

The latter half of the book examines the merciless nature of battle and I did wonder if there were some parallels with WW2 and the invasion of China with Japan and some of the atrocities performed in that time in the name of an Emperor. My only caveat is that it really does show the starkness of battle and the horrific aftermath creates scenes that some readers may find too upsetting. This also led to the question as to what you need to do to stop the war and is that decision and what it will then unleash justifying the means? In a fantasy environment this means allowing Gods to exert their powers on earth – is that choice justified. Kuang does not make the decision easy and nor is it clear certainly in this first volume that the right answer was used. There are signs an even larger game is being played between these forces and a theme is made about choices – we decide what we want to do, and we must then be responsible for our actions and what that means for our world. Can we still support Rin and her path at the end?

The novel this book most closely reminds me of is The Fifth Season (one of my all-time favourite series) in that it examines how a society gets to where it is and the consequences due to the structure and prejudices created by it. This first volume perhaps has focused more on the build-up and at the end of it we have a very different set-up to the one we joined, and I’m intrigued how the aftermath of these choices will be handled. One of the most impressive fantasy of the year and I think well worth your time.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit Books for a review copy of this book.

R.F. Kuang’s "The Poppy War" is one of the hardest-hitting and impressive debuts I’ve had the privilege of reading; it pulled me through an exhaustive range of emotion of which I haven’t yet recovered. The book explores the corruption of power, the lust for vengeance, and the darkest depths of humanity and savagery. It comments on the nature of war, religion, and social imbalance. It paints an all-too-real portrait of racial atrocities, drug dependence, and genocide. Yet it is compulsively readable and quietly educational as well. Kuang seems driven to shine a spotlight on humanity at its basest level, and what we find is unfortunately all too familiar.

These revelations are frightening for a fantasy novel, but even more disturbing when drawing comparisons to crises evident in our own recent history. This story has direct correlations with the first and second Sino-Japanese War and World War II, when the Japanese imperialists were responsible for the deaths of millions of civilians and POWs through deeds of human experimentation, starvation, chemical and biological warfare, and genocide. It was a horrifying and shameful period in human history, and it happened less than a century ago.

But don’t let these themes scare you away from picking this book up, as the story takes on a much less oppressive tone for the first two acts. The narrative follows Rin, a teenage war orphan who is assigned to live with adoptive parents who deal opium for a living. They plan to sell Rin to a man thrice her age who can pay her parents a large dowry, and Rin envisions a life of unhappiness and disgust unless she can somehow find a way out. She learns about a test that all students can take that would place them in universities across the country. Having no money, the only college that wouldn’t charge her tuition is the very best of the best: a military academy in Sinegard, the capital city of the Nikara empire. This poor, southern girl who is years behind in her education must sacrifice everything to gain a spot at this prestigious academy where only the sons and daughters of warlords and politicians attend. Although Rin passes the test, she quickly learns that her challenges are just getting started.

We spend the first half of the book following Rin’s progress and education in the studies of martial arts, lore, strategy, and other subjects that will prepare her for a high leadership role in the armed forces. But Rin is different than her peers; she has left her old life behind, and faces a homelessness and starvation if she doesn’t excel in her studies. She dedicates herself to learning as much as she can about the history of her empire, The First and Second Poppy Wars, and how an entire race of people were sacrificed just to gain allies in a conflict. She trains in a different form of combat than any of her other peers whom have been fighting since they could stand. She starts to learn about the ancient art of shamanism, and how ingesting certain hallucinogens or opioids can help transcend her state of meditation towards communion with her gods.

Rin is an imperfect soul who is easy to root for, especially since it is plain to see how any one of us could make the same mistakes and errors of judgment in our own youth. She means well, and is not afraid to sacrifice anything for what she believes is right and just. This theme comes into play several times throughout the course of the book, and helps to shape the type of person Rin feels she is fated to become. But the gods may scoff at ideas such as fate and destiny, and Rin and her peers are forced to make the most difficult decision of all: when faced with unspeakable horror, how far would you go to exact vengeance? Can acts of terror ever truly be justified?

Simply put, "The Poppy War" is a towering achievement of modern fantasy. Kuang writes in a descriptive and narrative style that presents many sides of an issue without trying to persuade the reader into thinking which path is the “correct” one, if one such exists. As the book descends into its bleak final act, the connection we’ve built with Rin and her companions is put to the test. It is a testament to Kuang’s skill as a writer to establish such a strong connection with her protagonists that the impact of the events in third act hit as hard as they do. There aren’t any real complaints I have about this book, which is wholly impressive considering how early it is in the author’s young career. This story weaves recent Chinese history into an emotionally chaotic, brilliantly-told grimdark fantasy that is impossible to forget. Read it.

9.3 / 10

Highlights:

Badass female main character

Historical Chinese setting

Shaman Magic system

Struggles in training and learning, nothing happens overnight

Cool friends

Tutor weirdness

Basically, I enjoyed this book so much I forgot to take notes, much of this review is based on memory.

The book is told from Rin's perspective 95% of the time which is really nice as I have read a lot of multi-perspectives books lately. The book is divided into three parts, all relating to the relation between Rin's nation Nakara and its neighbour and all the different stages of Rin's understanding and development as a person. In short, the first part is new and fun, the second part is nervous, and the third part is bloody.

I really enjoyed the entire book. I loved Rin as a character and loved following her development throughout the book and the story.

Be aware, of the brutality which starts in part 3. I have read a lot of books and when people say it's a dark book I tend to love it and not really find it that dark, or people say its brutal, and I don't really find it that brutal. This one was very brutal for me. It's not just the fact that they are at war, but it's the gruesome brutality towards civilians (men, women, children and infants) that really struck me deep. The level of gruesomeness made my brain distance itself a bit from the story emotionally, so when something sad happened I didn't have the reactions I should have. However, it all adds up to the reasons behind Rin's decision making and her changes as a person. 

The story is set in a fantasy version of 20th century China. Rin's Nikara is controlled by an Empress, while the neighbouring Federation is run by an Emperor who feels Nikara is his. Rin goes through a Nikara in a peace, to a Nikara on the brink of war and in full tension, to a Nikara at war. She makes a dramatic and difficult journey. Both trying to figure out who she is, who she wants to be, and want she wants, where her place in the system and in the universe is and of she has a choice in it all.

R F Kuang writes war in high detail and not the typical fantasy war with battalion against battalion, but as in a modern warfare against older warfare. It's guerrilla warfare, sword fights, magic fights, and waves of soldiers. It's brutal, gruesome, tragic, and realistic. It's very well written, but not something you should read before bed or while you eat (like I did. it was a short lunch...).

Rin is the main character and the story is from her perspective. The book starts with Rin sitting down to take her Kajo exam. She has spent only two years studying for this exam while most children spend their entire lives studying. Rin only has one chance. If she fails she will be married off to a rich old dude... Who wants that?

I really enjoyed her study method, it was intense. She had to finish two books a week and rotate between two subjects a day, on top of her duties as a shop girl and drug dealer.

Rin really develops and becomes more solid as she figures out who she is and as the book evolves. And it's not like halfway through she has found her self, the search goes all the way to the very last page, and I really liked that.

One thing I didn't like about Rin was when she got her period. Firstly, Hell Yeah a period is mentioned in a book!!! YES, Kuang! And it's not a nice trickling sort of period it's the full-on on crime scene and pain of death stuff she gets. But, what I didn't like is the author's way of getting rip of this element. I know its very difficult to write about a female character who every month has to have her heavy period, but it makes it realistic and adds a challenge. In here thought the author writes it off. Yes, I understand what Rin was thinking, and believe me I understand! But I wished it would not end so soon. I felt she could have struggled with it more. Get some life experience and all that. Having said all that, later in the book, this event proposes an interesting limit for Rin and who she is. I won't say more...

I enjoyed her training struggles and not having an easy time learning, because learning isn't always easy. You cant run a marathon just because you trained once, you have to go through the struggles of training for months, and Rin does that. Not the marathon but the training. Loved the pig up the mountain element, lol!

Of all the side characters I really liked Kitay. He's a great supporting character for Rin, as her opposite but complementary to Rin as a person.  

I found the setting magical. I absolutely loved it. I kept imagining a mix of Mulan and Chinese art (like the cover), especially in the beginning. As the storyline become darker and more brutal my thoughts moved towards the Second Wolrd War and the Vietnam War (as my only source of reference for a war in Asia with serious gruesomeness and brutality), but still with Chinese art style landscape.

The magic system was fascinating as hell. I really enjoyed how Rin discovered it the first time around. That was a lot of fun to read. The shamanism is something I've never read about and it gave me something new and interesting, and I really like it.

I also like the fact that Rin has to discover several things for herself by trial and error, which gives the author a chance to "try stuff out in this world" and to introduce and explain thing to the reader. It also gives Rin more challenges and struggles to go through. 

This book is really well written throughout. It's detailed without overwhelming me with details. The pacing is spot on in all the different scenes without sprinting or dragging. It's smooth and easily flows through the plotline.

Well done!

I'm definitely reading other stuff by this author and I can't wait for book two in this trilogy!

Welp.

That's honestly all I can bring myself to say about THE POPPY WAR, a brutal, breathtaking, DARK AS FUCK fantasy epic inspired by the Sino-Japanese War and some of the larger historical and cultural questions that have long haunted the region. I'll try to contextualize that helpless monosyllable exclamation, but seriously, welp is all that needs saying.

First of all, be warned: the book jacket summary really covers the first third of the book. And it is a wonderful first third of a book, to be sure: a coming-of-age military academy that throws our ruthless, endlessly yearning heroine Rin into a shark pool of the most elite scholars and martial artists Nikara has to offer. It's kind of what you expect of a boarding school bildungsroman, with enemy classmates, fast friends, eccentric teachers, impossible crushes, but it's also waaay more intense than that. When war breaks out between Nikara and Mugen, things shift into high gear. Shit gets more real than we typically imagine, even of fantasy. RF Kuang does not let up, which is so great and done so well, but it may be helpful to have a better idea of what's in store; I knew it was inspired by the Sino-Japanese War and especially Nanking, so I knew what to expect, but it is still a very visceral read. In plot terms, THE POPPY WAR may not be for everyone.

But even if hardcore magic warfare is not your jam, it's written in such a modern, compulsively readable style that all the horrors (and again: oh, the horrors!) actually go down rather smoothly. Even in the beginning, there's a warmth and ease and, again, compulsive readability, that's very much at work; all the worldbuilding history lectures and classes on military strategy that Rin sits through don't feel like info-dumps at all, at least not in the way fantasy readers dread. You learn so much, and you want to learn more about this world and its rules and histories and its magics and its gods. I could read that stuff forever.

The biggest feat of this book, though, is its ambition. I can barely wrap my head around the scale of this book and the journey Rin takes throughout. It's a truly staggering work. Rin is the character I've been looking for most of my life; she's so dynamic, so real, so terrible, so wonderful, I almost wish she had a more... pleasant story... to exist in. But in the end, I don't, because the book and the character deserve each other, in the best possible way. The entire cast of characters are so much fun, filled with such depth, and go on such breathtaking/heartbreaking journeys themselves, it's so worth the relentless rollercoaster ride that is THE POPPY WAR to follow them all (view spoiler).

I loved this book to the bitter end. I can't wait to see where the series goes. But really, all I still want to say is: welp.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the egalley :)

This book is startling in its originality and has left me emotionally destroyed! It tells the story of Rin, a young girl hoping to escape being sold into a marriage by travelling to Sinegard and training at the Academy. The book starts as a fairly traditional story and we follow Rin through her attempts to get to the Academy. We then see how she is treated once she arrives there - spoiler, not kindly. The book then descends into a torturous fever dream of drugs, gods and war and is utterly relentless. I read this book not wanting to look, but unable to turn away from the horror unfolding before me and spent a large amount of time staggered by the decisions that some of the characters make. This is not a world that I would ever want to travel to, and Kuang has rendered it with exquisite detail, ensuring that despite your misgivings, you have to continue. I cannot say that I enjoyed this book - it is not a book that the word 'enjoy' applies to, in my opinion. What I can say is that I found it breathtaking and terrifying in equal measure. A wonderful achievement.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The Poppy War is an amazingly accomplished debut fantasy novel comprising of dizzying highs and devastating lows.

This is book that covers basically all bases:

It’s a slow burner in many ways, yet manages to skim any potentially boring bits, maintaining a good pace and momentum.

It’s hysterically funny at times, particularly early on when Rin is a first year of the Sinegard Military Academy, which is like Hogwarts on an acid trip. This part of the book is so, so entertaining and one of the most quotable things I’ve ever read, but, the story goes on to take much darker themes, particularly in the last quarter or so.

It’s both character driven and fiercely political – it deals with A-LOT of heavy issues, so consider this a trigger warning for:
*Graphic violence
*Genocide
*Rape
*Racism
*Substance abuse
*Self-harm
Oh and my personal favourite: *bad things happening to small children*
(seriously why does Kuang hate babies??)

One of the authors biggest strengths as a writer are the almost visceral scenes depicting the fallout of a political war for innocent inhabitants of a country. I understand the necessity of the author taking this seriously and it 100% has to be gritty and realistic, I just personally have a really hard time imagining infants being brutalised, and there were at least five or six separate occasions where I’d see the word ‘baby’ or ‘babies’ and I honestly just skipped to the next page for the sake of my own well-being (history of PND over here manifesting as high level anxiety and an inability to hear about anything bad happening in the world ever and not immediately picture it happening to my infant sons and having a panic attack, soz)

So yeah that kind of left a bad taste in my mouth and quite honestly affected my experience continuing with the last quarter of the book, which is a shame because up until that point I was basically this books #1 fan and it sort of ended on a bit of a downer. I’m not saying that it should have been excluded but personally I just find it impossible to separate fantasy and reality when it comes to these things because my wee brain is broken.

Nonetheless I’m looking forward to continuing with this series (I’m sure I read somewhere that it was going to be a trilogy) and I’d like to sincerely thank the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to review this title 🙂

The Poppy War is the debut fantasy novel from R.F. Kuang. It’s a thoughtful piece, looking at colonisation, cultural constructions, empire and authority, atrocities, and philosophies of violence. Mind you, it also has snappy dialogue, explosive (often literally) magic, a world where the strange and the familiar intermingle, and characters which will make you laugh, cry, and scream – possibly all at once. It’s an incredibly impressive debut, one which explores some dark places, but does so with such honesty and imagination that it’s impossible to put down.

As you may be able to tell, I rather enjoyed it.

The world of The Poppy War is one shaped by empires. There’s the one in which we find ourselves, as an example. A sprawling creature, split into provinces governed by separate warlords, it still has a history. That history is one of violence. Originally separate kingdoms, bound together by strongmen into a nominally functional unit, it was broken apart by a colonising force. After years of warfare, it’s been reshaped to the current form, ruled by a survivor of three heroes that led the fight against the occupation. There’s a history here – one of assumed culutral superiority and arrogance, clashing with the reality of pulling out from under the hand of an occupier. That the occupation ended due to the intervention of a third party is the icing on the cake of identity. It’s a land with heroes, yes, and with a recent history of successful resistance through unification – but a far longer one of internecine conflict and division.

So there’s politics. There’s scheming and the need to decide who controls what, and always, hovering on the horizon, is the understanding that the historical occupying forces could be back this time tomorrow. It’s a space which is rich in history, but also rich in gods. Divinities, lore, magic, are all ideas floating at the edge of the cultural consciousness. They’re maligned, to be sure, considered folk stories and traditions, but they help the seamless, sparkling tapestry of the world leap into life. If the larger world is one of wars, of realpolitik, of tax farmers, of drugs and swords and blood – there is a liminal space here, one in which fire and hope burn together. In a world of formal exams, maintained by and for the elite with a façade of meritocracy, in a world where drugs are forbidden and pervasive – in that world, if and when magic is real, it can shatter lives.

Kuang has constructed a geography which evokes tones from our world – the colonial adventures of the 1800’s, the sociocultural tensions of the Quing dynasty – but gives them a unique spin, one which adds a mixture of blood and sparkle. This is a world of potentially necessary horrors, and the monsters who builds them – but also one of wonders. Sometimes those are built by the same people.

Our protagonist, living in this space is Rin. Rin comes from nothing. Rin is not meant to be anything.

But Rin is stubborn. Rin persists. Rin has fire and determination, and a bloody-minded desire to stick it to whoever has annoyed her. Rin is smart. Rin is cynical. Rin kicks serious arse. And Rin pays for it. In some ways, this is a hopeful book. Rin doesn’t have a thing. She’s trying to escape her dirt poor town, and its dirt poor prospects, by becoming something else, something , if not better, at least different. Rin, an orphan, struggles to define herself against the expectations of the world around her.

She claws back every inch. In between confounding others expectations, she also manages to be better, rising from the social constraints of her upbringing to have a fighters control to go with her spirit. In her interactions with magic, Rin learns, to be sure, but she carries a kind of icy pragmatism, a banked rage and determination which binds some of her self-worth to success, however she defines that. But what she’s really looking for is identity – to either become what her unknown past inspires, or to be whatever she can make of herself.

Rin also makes some hard choices. I’m inclined to call them bad choices, but the texture of the book wouldn’t allow it. This isn’t a place with simple decisions. It’s one where using power has bloody, horrific consequences, mostly for others – and where not using power also has bloody, horrific consequences for others. These decisions sit on a razor edge, and Rin’s struggle with her own capacities, with her own choices and their consequences, helps to shape the book. I’m not sure I agreed with them all, but I understood them all – and both Rin and the reader will come to understand the price which she pays for each decision made. This begins as a story of a young woman growing into her power, but then sidles into a narrative about the consequences of using, or refusing to exercise, that power.

The plot – well, no spoilers. There’s a school, and it teaches martial arts. It teaches tactics and strategy. It may or may not teach the mystical. Rin finds herself there, in her journey to discover herself, and to pay the costs of doing so. But it’s not just a school story, Harry Potter with blod on knives. It’s also a story of war. Of battles. Of lives taken and lives broken. Of atrocities. Of hard decisions taken in despair, and bloody decisions taken in hope. There’s magic. There’s a lot of fabulously kinetic single combat fight scenes. There’s politics, there’s military infighting, there’s gods and magic and more than one hidden agenda. There’s a coming of age story with carmine blades and a whiff of the mystical extracting a price no-one should pay.

Is it any good? Absolutely. The book kicks arse, and I couldn’t put it down. It’s a cracking debut, and one I recommend without reservation.

I have so many thoughts that I need to make sense of for this one. First of all, I'd heard a lot of people saying how this was like a mixture of Avatar and The Name of the Wind with a female protagonist, and in a way I can see certain similarities between the three of them. In The Poppy War, we follow our main protagonist Rin, a poor war orphan living in one of the poorest villages of the Nikan empire, who in order to get away from an arranged marriage, she decides her way out of that village is to enter the Sinegard academy, one of the most prestigious institutes where the best students, and the most well-off, of the entire empire go to train and learn to become the future generals, soldiers, doctors, and leaders of the empire. The main character does remind me of Kvothe and his struggle to enter the university, and she also has a crazy and unorthodox teacher once she enters the academy, but other than that, the similarities end there. Especially because when said comparisons are made, the first thing that comes to my mind is always the writing style, which in this case, is NOTHING like The Name of the Wind.

When I say that it was so hard for me to make up my mind about what I think of this book is because I feel like this novel was two books in one: there is no correlation whatsoever in tone between the first half and the second half of this book. In the first part we get to follow Rin and her struggles in the Sinegard academy, where she is shunned of course as an outsider and a misfit by the majority of her well-off classmates. She struggles with her classes, with not falling behind her training, and with a specific master, who teaches her everything there is to know about the history of the world and what she is mostly obsessed with, shamanism. Shamans, people who were able to commune with Gods and draw from them power that could be used, have been unheard of for hundreds of years, yet Rin thinks that it's possible to once more open the gate to the spiritual world and connect with the gods after her master makes her see that not everything that she's been taught is actually true. And then we have the second half of the book, where the characters are no longer in the academy but out in the world fighting a war for their empire and their Empress. And I feel like in this part, the characterization gets lost for the sake of introducing the worst possible crimes that could be committed in a war. Certain characters feel like they are mere pieces of chess that are only there to have to suffer the effects of war. A specific female character was merely brought back to the novel simply for the sake of having a recount of the most gruesome rape scene and female body profanation that I could have ever read in my life. And even though we do get a lot of political intrigue in this part and counter-attack strategies for the war, the characters lost their agencies somewhere along the way. I couldn't believe that the strong-willed and hot-headed character that I grew to love in the first part turned into this submissive shell of her character. She did not go through hell to just be physically and verbally abused by a certain character and take it without saying a thing. I also don't know if it is necessary to have 100 different ways of body profanation and gruesome descriptions on how you can dismember a body when just 15 would have sufficed to make a point of how vile and evil the invaders were. And I don't think that just because you get a section of a book with dozens of descriptions of said gruesome crimes is enough to consider this novel a "grimdark" novel, I honestly do not think it should be considered as such, especially when it only happens in just a part of the book.

I've seen a lot of people who reviewed this book say that the part where Rin is in the institute is actually the worst part of the book and I have to disagree. For me, the first part was the most captivating part. We get to follow Rin claw her way out of her very poor village, work her ass off to be able to have a future in life, and to develop as a character. That whole first half of the book, for me, was the best. We were also following the characters more in depth, seeing them interacting and how their relationships evolved with one another, and I felt closer to all these characters than I did at the end of the book, because for me, the last part of the book lost me as an audience. I couldn't connect nor care for the characters that I had started loving when this book started, and the ending didn't make me any more intrigued as to what's gonna happen in the subsequent books as an ending should do.

Would I recommend this book? It depends. If you are looking for an own voices fantasy novel that is inspired in asian culture, then yes, this is definitely a book for you. But beware of all the trigger warnings this book has, because it really has some dark shit in it. But if I had to personally decide based on how I felt while reading it, then I don't know if I would recommend this one. It was a good and unique fantasy novel, and from the ones I've read which have been asian inspired, this one definitely was the best so far, but I can't say that I cared much for the characters nor for the plotline. I really got around 80% of the book and I still didn't understand what the climax of this story was. I was hoping for something to blow my mind or for some revelation to make my brain go "yeah, this is why I stuck around 500 pages for, for this exact moment", and that moment never came. The ending was extremely underwhelming because it was what I expected to happen. Nothing came as a surprise, especially not after the revelation of a particular "enemy" was done only to the readers after half way through the book. Maybe if we weren't have been exposed to said revelation before, when it was revealed to the characters who that person was and what said character had done, I would have been shocked.

I cannot deny this was a strong debut novel with a strong female protagonist, and that when it comes to fantasy novels, it was refreshing to finally find a book that doesn't settle for the overused european medieval setting. But when it comes to personal preferences, I don't think this book made an impression on me. Maybe I'll continue on with this series when the next books come out, but as of right now, I have plenty of other series that are a priority to me.

ARC provided via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review


<i>Here is what happened: you called a god, and the god answered</i>

Have you ever read any Chinese or Japanese fairy tales the way they were meant to be read (rather than when a western translator has frigged around with them to make them fit a western mindset)? They can get seriously loopy and often the actions of the hero can seem quite arbitrary. The ending is nearly always ambivalent. While Chinese and Japanese mythology has always fascinated me (in addition to culture, languages and history - enough that I spent ten years studying it), I'll admit that the ending of those stories always left me feeling vaguely discomforted, which was no doubt what they were designed to do. I am not casting aspersions here; before the Victorians got hold of and sanitised fairy tales like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, those were deeply disturbing too. <b>The Poppy War</b> has the same feel as those fairy tales. Throw in a slightly more contemporary fantasy mindset, events drawn from real historical events and something of Kung Fu movies (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in particular sprang to mind) and that's pretty much what you've signed up for.

I don't often issue trigger warnings but I'm going to make an exception in this case because the Rape of Nanking is clearly the inspiration for parts of the book. So <b>TW</b> extreme and brutal violence, inhuman acts of cruelty, casual cruelty to people and animals (in fact animals do not fare well in this book so be aware), rape (off screen but recounted vividly), infanticide, genocide, enthnic cleansing, laboratory experimentation on humans, vivisection, abuse of every kind, extreme and frequent drug use both voluntary and forced, and pretty much every other unspeakable act that the human race is capable of. Most of it is not seen in real time but recounted later or the MC is presented with the aftermath but considering some of the things I've seen and dealt with in real life over the course of various careers, even I found parts of this very difficult reading. A couple of times I felt physically sick and I went in knowing fairly graphically the historical events that provided the inspiration.

That being said, this is NOT grimdark. Not in the least. There is more to grimdark than throwing in lots of swearing and horrific acts of violence. This is epic fantasy drawing on some disturbing but true source material.

The Poppy War is divided into three sections and I feel like I read three different books that I would rate differently.

Part 1 - 5 stars
Part 2 - 3-4 stars
Part 3 - 2 stars

As you can see I've given the book as a whole three stars - nothing to do with averaging the rating for each section, that's just how I feel about the book. <b>Part one</b> contained so many of the things I love in a fantasy novel:

Disadvantaged young woman rescuing herself.

Success through hard work and intelligence.

Martial arts done properly – hell yaaaass.

Apparently loopy, contrary and inscrutable mentor who may well have his own agenda – seriously these are always my favourite characters.

Intriguing plot backed by historically inspired detail and political machinations that actually make sense.

And finally a good look at the fine art of military strategy. Soooo many authors making military strategy in fantasy novels contingent on ethics or decency and in terms of pure logic they have nothing to with it. The one who wins the war is the one who is prepared to calculated gamble and gamble big, employing tactics that the other side won’t countenance. I don’t applaud this behaviour but I am fascinated by it. I despise the watered down version of it we’re fed in so many fantasy novels.

Rin, the MC, is a war orphan, reared in an out of the way village in the Southern Rooster Province, by apothecaries who run a black market opium racket on the side. This is already an unhappy situation but when it becomes clear that 'Auntie' intends to sell her in marriage to man who has buried three wives already, Rin becomes determined to pass the Keju (a fiendishly difficult exam which is clearly drawn from Chinese history, based on the imperial exam introduced in the Sung Dynasty.) Her goal is to attend the illustrious but exclusive Sinegard academy - a military university which charges no fees to study but is difficult to meet the entry requirements for. Rin discovers that this is a token meritocracy, that she is continually at a disadvantage as a provincial girl with no martial arts lineage. Her low origins earn her few friends and plenty of enemies. Sinegard city is not a place for a country mouse, and under everything runs the black veins of the opium smuggling snydicates. Forbidden by the Empress after the second Poppy War, opium is used for trade, for pleasure, for pain relief and even it is rumoured by some who seek access to the gods and phenomenal, inhuman powers...

Sounds good right? Lots to like there. <b>Part two</b> is completely different. Long term enemies invade Nikan and the military students are given posts all over the empire to aid in the war. Due to certain occurrences, Rin is placed with the Cike - elite assassins ho make up the 13th division. And this is where it all starts to get a bit strange. Rin loses a lot of agency in this third of the book. In some ways this is understandable because she has largely had an academic understanding of war up until this point and the harsh reality puts her on the back foot. The problem is she never recovers. From an MC who has so much personality - not all of it likeable - in the first third, she now becomes a bit empty. A viewing port for the reader to look through. I wouldn't say the pace sags here but it does slow. Presumably that's because the events at this point are very frustrating. I don't want to spoil anything but there's a brilliant bit of misdirection here that was very satisfying to unravel. There were a few supernatural moments and strange beasts too. What's perhaps most annoying is that Rin stops trying to improve her hard won skills. And apparently she stops using her brain to think around problems too.

<b>Part three</b> is where it all comes crashing down. Rin loses all agency in this third and is just carried along with events right up until she makes possibly the stupidest decision I've seen in fantasy ever. It made no sense for her to go along with her commander's plans, which were insanely stupid. I think we're supposed to believe there was some improbable almost romance blossoming there but like so many of Rin's interpersonal relationships it's never really developed and so it just doesn't wash. The atrocities visited upon the Nikanese in this section by the invading Mugen are truly horrific. And just when you think it can't get any worse a 'Joseph Mengele' Mugen Dr shows up in a research facility. Honestly, a lot of this felt unnecessary. I'm all for not dressing up the horrors of the past but the problem with incorporating it on this scale was that people became statistics. The only way to really make your audience feel when faced with the sort of overwhelming horror that was the Rape of Nanking, is to visit those things upon one or two characters that you've made your readers care about. Instead we get aftermath and we get second hand account. Personally I would not have wanted to read about those things happening to Rin but the author lost much or her audience by shying away from it. Nothing really bad happens to anyone we care about where we can see and so the sheer scale makes us naturally find it too horrible to be real, even when we know the historical events that inspired it are true. This is not exploitative at all but it also didn't feel delivered with empathy. Add to that the fantasy plot line train totally jumping the tracks here and it became a weirdly lop sided novel where the tone grew unremittingly darker in each section while the characters became wooden chess pieces, devoid of their own momentum. The third section didn't work for me. I like an ambiguous ending but I just didn't find this one satisfying. I almost disliked Rin by the end.


<i>You have to believe it was necessary. That it stopped something worse. And even if it wasn't, it's the lie we'll tell ourselves, starting today and every day afterward.</i>

Kuang writes a fully immersive fantasy world in a really compulsive style. She has some interesting ideas and really captures the feel and essence of Chinese and Japanese stories. There is a clear thread here on the dangers of a caste/ class system, on oppression, on valuing human life so little and presumably also on uncontrolled self anaesthetising with strong substances. I really enjoyed the references to 'The Principles of War' by Sunzi, clearly lifted from 'The Art of War' bu Sun Tzu (a must read). Either she is a martial artist herself or she really did her research because everything about that rang true to my 25 yrs of experience, from the kind of teachers you get to the crazy exercises you do, to the difference between watered down varieties and the harder to learn but more complete styles. I loved Jiang (at least until the third section.) There is really a lot to like about this book. Ultimately the structure and the ending didn't quite work for me. There were also a couple of events that drew me up short.

<b>SPOILERS</b>

Rin experiences her first period at 16 and her immediate reaction is to seek medical help to destroy her uterus <i>because it makes her weak.</i> Um what? I stand by anyone's choice to not have children but seriously one period and that's it? Being a woman makes you weak? This is not handled in a positive way.

Jan, the combat instructor, says 'you move like a paraplegic.' I really winced at that. Yes there are some gits out there who would say that. I'm sure it was the character not the author who was being ableist, but it wasn't necessary to use those words. 'you move like mother f***** a snail' - equally insulting but not denigrating people who are wheelchair bound. This is just the sort of casual use in books we need to get away from with disabilities. Besides having taught karate to actual paraplegics I can confirm that the lack of four working limbs doesn't stop them being every bit as dangerous as as someone who isn't wheelchair bound.

Not really an issue for me but it was weird to see 'ki' used instead of 'chi'. Considering that Nikan is clearly based on China and Murgen is based on Japan, substituting the Japanese work for 'spirit/ energy' seemed a bit odd. Doesn't bother me. I have no claim to any Asian ancestry at all and am certainly not any kind of expert, but I've seen authors metaphorically hanged, drawn and quartered for less. Same goes for 'Kirin' (Jaanese Unicorn) instead of Chi-lin (Chinese Unicorn).

<b>SPOILERS END</b>

Overall I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book. I love the setting and if it had continued more in the vein of the first two thirds, I would be slightly more psyched about reading the next book. Right now I'm just not sure. It definitely gets a recommendation from me as being Asian inspired and non euro-centric in setting though.

I received an advanced reader copy of The Poppy War from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I would like to thank R. F. Kuang and Harper Voyager for this opportunity.

Rin is a war orphan who works at her foster parents' shop and their main income is created by dealing drugs. Only just into her teenage years, Rin is offered a proposal to marry and bear children for an unattractive gentleman three times her age who has no redeeming qualities. She decides she needs to escape this presented and projected future and her only means of doing this is to study for the Keju - an examination where the top-50 students in the country that pass the test can train at the military educational establishment set in the empire's capital. Surprising everyone apart from herself she is successful and then whisked away by her tutor to the city and this is where Rin's adventure really starts.

Although the college sections are similar in design and structure to those depicted within novels such as The Name of the Wind and The Wizard of Earthsea, The Poppy War has a lot more in common with Anthony Ryan's Blood Song. This is a dark, brutal, gruesome and occasionally uncomfortable book to experience so readers should not think that because it features a school environment with best friends, bullies, and coming of age experiences that this is dumbed down like some fantasy adventures that feature such tropes.

The Poppy War is inspired by China's bloody 20th-century history and parallels between segments here and real events can be seen at certain points. The oriental take on fantasy is something that has intrigued me since I read Fonda Lee's - Jade City and similar to that tale Kuang's debut is complex, insightful, well-crafted and features certain characters who kick-ass at martial arts. The world building here is sublime, as is the depth of the nations history, religions and practices. There were many ways the author engineered the intricate details of her created world but my personal favourite was when the myths of the Trifecta were presented in the form of a shadow puppet show.

The characterisation and character development employed throughout this novel are exquisite. Written in the third person perspective, Rin is the only point of view character that we follow and to say that her character and personality change throughout the course of the narrative is an understatement. She is an excellent protagonist and shortly she may be mentioned alongside genre-defining characters such as Kvothe and Vaelin. There is quite a sizeable dramatis personae and too many standout characters to mention in this review. Notable mentions go to Jiang (the Lore master who might just be a little bit insane), Nezha (Rin's rival who is the beautiful son of a warlord and who should have a glorious military career), and Altan (the college's finest student who excels in all aspects and has never lost a fight). Also, the Cike are brilliant. They are almost like this worlds version of the X-Men.

Approximately the first half of the book is set in the school where students learn about five subjects including strategy, lore, and martial arts training. Three years later we reach the second half of The Poppy War which features skirmishes, battles, political indecision and some of the grimmest and most shocking scenes I've come across for a long time. One moment is particular stands out as being on par with the nightmare that was the hammer scene from Anna Stephen's Godblind. This story features plenty of deaths as well as torture, drug use, mutilation, implied rape, grotesque monsters and malevolent gods. The first third of the book doesn't really present this sort of darkness and despondency so I thought I'd make it clear in my review that this is a story that is very adult in nature. A good percentage of destruction, later on, is generated from this worlds magic where certain vessels can be assigned the power of the gods and wield it for their own means. As I'm sure you can imagine, this leads to ridiculously overpowered players that then can lead to complete madness.

2017's debut fantasy releases were some of the finest of recent years and it's great to know that Kuang has picked up the baton and is carrying on the trend and leading the charge in 2018. I can safely say that this will be the finest debut of 2018 and I'd be surprised if it isn't one of the top 3 books of the year full stop. Spectacular, masterclass, brilliant, awesome... All the complimentary buzzwords you can imagine don't quite do The Poppy War justice for how amazing it is. The only very minor criticism I have is that on the cover artwork Rin has a bow and I can't remember her using such a weapon in the book. That's my only negative. If you like dark adult fantasy then check out this masterpiece by grimdark's newest and perhaps darkest daughter.