The Poppy War

Book Title: The Poppy War

Author: R. F. Kuang

Series: The Poppy War #1

Date Started: July 27th 2020

Date Completed: August 2nd 2020

Genres: Fantasy, Historical, Adventure

Quality Rating: Five Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

◆ Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for this eBook copy for review ◆

I'd heard very good things about The Poppy War, and while I wasn't as blown away as I expected to be, I have high hopes for where this series will go - because that's some good epic fantasy right there. The first half felt very familiar (not in a bad way) of the genre, and then things started to go in their own direction from there into one of the darkest adventures I've read in a long while.

Look, in hindsight, this book is essentially all set up for the rest of the series, but it feels like its own story as you're reading it - things just escalate way out of control by the end and our heroine is faced with a much bigger problem than what she started with. I am honestly looking forward to what's coming slightly more than I would say I enjoyed this book, just because I could kind of tell where we were going until the last quarter. I think the sequels are really going to offer something exciting and unpredictable.

There were points where I wondered if The Poppy War needed to be as gruesome and graphic as it was. The book starts off pretty neutral and slowly descends into dark, and then horrible, and then absolutely abhorrent events. But where the story ends up (and presumably where the series will go) ends up explaining itself. The weight of the atmosphere did need to be established gradually, and Kuang does a good job of setting our perspective up and then throwing us into the deep end along with Rin.

If you've read my reviews before or know my tastes, you'll know I loved stories inspired by mythology - especially Asian mythology - and while Chinese (and potentially some Sino-Japanese in there too?) is not what I'm most familiar with, this was right up my street. And it should be said that you really don't have to have any previous awareness of it; both the historical and mythologically-inspired aspects are well explained while being naturally integrated into Rin's story.

One of the things I read (I think from the author) about this book was that it was almost like Avatar: The Last Airbender for adults - and there was a point in the middle of this book where I was like that's totally it. The world is rich, the politics are grey and the spirit-world/magic-system is one thing, but the real heart is always the characters. The Poppy War is intrinsically about Rin, but the ensemble that comes in and out around her are what flesh out everything she's up against. And I do have to mention, I thought Rin was a bit morally challenged for a lot of this book and wasn't fully behind the idea that we as the audience should support everything she did, but Kuang does eventually acknowledge that it's more complicated than that. It's not often you get to see a character you care for but disagree with on a number of fronts take centre stage, and that's super engaging to read.

Harper Voyager has been awesome and approved this whole series for me on NetGalley, so I'm going to be diving back into this world very soon ahead of the final book's release in November. So far, while I'm still waiting to be fully blown away, I am very hopeful and excited about where Rin is going to take her quest now that the stakes are so much more complicated than she first thought.