The Poppy War: A Novel

“When had she last been this scared? Had she felt this paralysis, this numbing dread before she stepped into the ring with Nezha two years ago? No, she had been angry then, and proud. She had thought she was invincible. She had been looking forward to the fight, anticipating the bloodlust. That felt stupid now. So, so stupid. War was not a game, where one fought for honor and admiration, where masters would keep her from sustaining any real harm. War was a nightmare."By now, I’m sure most people who are even remotely a part of the bookish community have heard about The Poppy War. This book came out in 2018 and has been talked about pretty much non-stop ever since! It appeared on my TBR after a severe case of FOMO had me adding a bunch of book community darlings on Goodreads. And there it sat… collecting dust and shaming me as I continued to pick up different, newer books. That was until I joined a buddy read with some awesome bookish folks on Twitter! It was just the push I needed to finally give this book a go and see if I would like it.Y’all. This book destroyed me. I was in such a book hangover after finishing it that I barely got through three other books in October. It was a struggle! After all that waiting, I finally realize why everyone was raving about this story!We’re following a young war orphan named Rin, who is in the care of drug dealers who use her to help them with their seedy business. When they decide to force Rin into an arranged marriage, she decides that she needs to GTFO. She starts studying for the Keju, a test used throughout the Empire to pick people to send to the numerous academies. Rin figures if she gets a good enough score, she can escape to an academy instead of being stuck in a marriage she does not want. Well, not only does she receive a good enough score, she aces the test and is sent to the most prestigious academy in the entire country: Sinegard. Once there, she has to fight against prejudice, her classmates, and her own mind to prove she’s more than what she seems.I always have issues writing reviews for my five star reads. All I want to do is scream at everyone to read the book! Of course, a lot of people already have read this book, so I suppose I should try and be a little more coherent 😂 So let’s try breaking this down into the main things I loved about this book. Besides everything.First, the writing. Oof, the writing! Talk about being captured in a narrative through beautiful writing alone! I’m not talking about purple prose… there’s nothing purple about Kuang’s writing. I’m talking about writing that flows and twists in such a way that you soon find yourself lost in the pages. There are so many quotable passages that it took me forever to pick a favorite! I just loved everything about her prose. It made the pages fly by! That and the incredible pacing. I was kept on the edge of my seat even when nothing particularly exciting was happening. I was so wrapped up in Rin’s development and her journey that even her running up and down a mountain with a pig on her back seemed fascinating, lol.Speaking of Rin, can we talk about how R.F. Kuang crafted such compelling characters??? I’m honestly in awe. Not only Rin, but Jiang and Kitay and Nezha and Altan and all of them practically leap off the page! Rin makes a lot of… questionable choices, but I connected with her so much. I was completely invested in her journey. I felt her anger and I felt her pain. I wanted to shake her and I wanted to hug her all at the same time! She’s just such a dynamic and vibrant character who will pull you even further to the world. And, as I said, the characters that are pulled into her orbit are equally brilliant and intriguing. They all have such depth and color that they can’t help but shine! I haven’t been so invested in a bunch of fictional characters in quite some time.Last, let’s talk about the world-building. I love when an author can weave the world-building into the story so that it doesn’t feel like you’re reading a textbook. R.F. Kuang managed this throughout The Poppy War. You learned about the world almost subconsciously, picking up tidbits of information as Rin goes on her journey from the Rooster Province to Sinegard to war. It made it really easy to fall into the world and lose yourself as you read. It made the scenes come to life in my mind, vivid and bloody and haunting. And I think this is the main reason I had such a massive book hangover! I was so trapped in the world that every other book I picked up felt boring and flat in comparison. Makes me nervous to finish the sequel, The Dragon Republic, this month before all the other books I’m reading…Overall, this book is incredible and I cannot wait to continue the series! Even if I’m scared to do so at the same time 😅😂

In my review of Naomi Novik’s His Majesty’s Dragon, I proclaimed to be an avid student of Napoleonic History. If there’s one era that fascinates me even more, it is China’s transition from imperial rule, through the Republican Era, and the establishment of the People’s Republic. When I heard R. F. Kuang’s The Poppy War was an epic military fantasy based on the Second Sino-Japanese War (known by the Chinese as The Oppose Japan War, by Imperial Japan as The China Incident, and the ignored by the rest of the world as a prelude to World War II), and it was receiving rave reviews, I knew I had to get my hands on it.The Poppy War gives us a lot to love:The main character, Rin, is an orphan you cannot help but to root for. Raised by opium dealers in the southern countryside, her lot in life is marriage to an old but influential merchant. However, she has not only been secretly learning to read and write, but also studying for the prestigious civil service exams. It lands her into a top military academy, where she faces a brand new set of challenges when pitted against classmates who’ve grown up training in martial arts and studying classical literature. Her failures and growth as a shaman and as a character, as she learns her true identity, make for a compelling story.Her personal and professional connections feel textured and complex. Among my favorites included her rivalry with a snobby, martially talented classmate, Nezha; her friendship with a brilliant classmate Kitay; her combative student-mentor bond with the perpetually high Master Jiang; and idolization of senior and later commander Altan. What I found beautiful about these relationships is how they evolve as circumstances change and Rin grows both as a person and in power.Inasmuch as James Maxwell’s Shifting Tides series seems based on a Hellenistic world and the Peloponnesian Wars, The Poppy War is not quite China and Japan; yet has real-life Chinese locations and names such as the Wudang Mountain; philosophers Zhuangzi and Mengzi; and famed tactician, Sunzi (the modern Romanization of Sun Tzu). The author has clearly researched the Gua (Trigrams) of the Book of Changes (I Ching/Yijing) as she infuses the story with lore and a rich history. The illicit drug-related magic system harkens back to real life shamanic traditions, and the infighting among warlords mirrors late Imperial and Republican China’s historic weaknesses. As such, the setting feels real and lived in.Solid and engaging, the plot moves along at a decent pace. It includes elements immediately recognizable as Japan’s “comfort women” system and ruthless research Unit 731. The story is not for the weak-stomached, due to brutal depictions of torture and murder, and recounting of systemic rape. Yet, the graphic violence doesn’t feel gratuitous. Not only does it move the story forward and contributes to Rin’s character development, but also paints a picture of real war, unsanitized or ignored by basic history books. These scenes might be the closest thing to a visit to the Rape of Nanjing Memorial in China many readers will ever get. (On a side note, the author listed the late Iris Chang as one of her literary inspirations. Ms. Chang wrote the highly acclaimed book, The Rape of Nanking. It is well worth the read.)All that said, I really really wanted to love The Poppy War; and I think had I approached it with zero expectations, I would have. My major complaint with the book is the military setting. I had seen references to the Second Sino-Japanese War, which to me implied tanks, steel warships, fighters, and bombers; the title The Poppy War reminded me of the mid-19th Century Opium Wars, where Britain’s steam-powered gunboats demolished Imperial China’s wooden junks and proceeded to bombard coastal defenses with cannons that China’s primitive artillery could not match. As such, I was looking for cues as to the technological level.Although Rin trains in martial arts at the military academy, it did not immediately imply a technological level for me (after all, even modern armies practice unarmed combat; and even though she is depicted with a bow on the cover, even Rambo used one in First Blood). Forty-percent of the way through the book, when hostilities between Rin’s homeland of Nikara break out with the island nation of Mugen, I was frustrated at still not knowing.Was the “lightly built,” “elegant” ship an Age of Sail ship of the line, or a steam-powered gunboat? Was the “armored column” a line of panzers, or men in mail? Are the soldiers’ “armor” Chinese fish scale lamellar, Japanese yoroi, steel cuirasses, or flak jackets? When all males were rounded up and “shot,” was it with pistols, or crossbows? Were “munitions” musket balls, jacketed bullets, grenades, or mortar rounds? Though Nikara’s soldiers shoot volleys of arrows at Mugen’s troops, is this because they are technologically inferior, or because that’s what both sides use? I felt much of this could have been conveyed more explicitly if not earlier, during Rin’s tenure at the military academy, then as she hears reports about the progress of the war—as is, we know Nikara is losing, but not whether it is due to just organizational inferiority, or also a wide technological gap. It isn’t until Rin faces several warriors hand-to-hand, and then a mounted Mugen general wielding a halberd, that I felt certain that both sides fought at the pre-firearm level.Despite these complaints, the rest of the story shines. Kuang’s writing style is unembellished, unpretentious, and easy to follow. At times, the dialog feels modern-colloquial, which gives it a young adult feel. With all these factors considered, I rate The Poppy War 8 stars out of 10.

Llegó en orden. Fue un regalo, así que no sé si la historia es buena.

Great story well written.Love the book and audiobook.

Amazing world building and loveable, diverse characters with strong character development. The story is gripping, especially the first half of the book. The second half gets very brutal and graphic.

Ainda não li mas tô colocando aq as fotos com e sem a jacket Pra quem gosta de saber como é antes de comprar 😉

I thought I was prepared when I started this book, I had read reviews, I had read up on trigger warnings/ content warnings and thought to myself, ‘ok, I know these exist so I will be prepared’. I was dead wrong. The Poppy War comes up to you and starts punching. It does not stop, so no, you are absolutely not prepared if you are a soft-hearted person like me.Based on Sino-Chinese war and Opium wars and following the system of Song dynasty, The Poppy War is an extremely grim look at war and its consequences. How it affects the country, its people and how soldiers are often facing the worst choices along with the common people. It’s absolutely addictive and unputdownable. There are people who haven’t really fallen for it, for many reasons. However the major reasons being that the first half of the book is magic/ military school setting and then, the other half was straight into war. The transition didn’t work with some and I can totally see how that could be. For me, personally, I think R. F. Kuang did a great job of showing that war can happen at any time if there’s tension between nations and it doesn’t wait for military graduates to actually graduate and will ruthlessly kill anyone. “War doesn’t determine who’s right. War determines who remains.”Now, the plot. There is a literal divide in plot points. First half of the book is spent with Rin trying to fit in with the rich, noble children of high officials and there’s so much to deal with there as well. Fang Runin ‘Rin’ reaches Sinegard after passing the Keju exams (the civil exams of ancient China-ish exams), because she is an orphan and comes from a poor background, she’s already been accused of cheating at her exams. However they couldn’t have known how much Rin wanted to pass the Keju because her life depended on it. Her home-life wasn’t the best, after being fostered by the Fangs and then being married off to the village’s richest person who’s twice her age, her determination to pass the exams was the only thing that kept her sane. Though sane is used in its loosest sense here.Her struggles at Sinegard for being poor, for being an orphan and being a darker person are written so beautifully. It’s raw and it’s not glorified, there are good people but the pervasive thoughts of being lesser will always make Rin all the more determined to survive and be better than everyone else. Her teachers also play a huge part in her unhealthy coping mechanisms, I can totally see teachers being that way though so no complaints there. From this school setting, they are thrust into war before they are even properly adults. I think I loved that a lot more than I thought I would. Life does not wait for people to be prepared for war, war just happens. However she does manage to find people who are not just sneering down at her. There’s Chen Kitay, who’s the only son of an official who’s very much for the Empress, who becomes a friend to Rin. Or rather as much as anyone can become a friend to Rin. There’s Nezha, who manages to make himself into an enemy with Rin right from the beginning. There’s a couple of more characters but I think you should read them on your own and make your own opinions because they are kinda interesting. “I have become something wonderful, she thought. I have become something terrible. Was she now a goddess or a monster? Perhaps neither. Perhaps both.”Rin’s shamanism is a huge part of the reason why she starts depending on poppy seeds. And it’s shown in the most realistic way possible. At first, her teacher Jiang won’t let her have the poppy seeds, for the right reasons but once she realises that war is upon them and without the poppy seeds, she might not be able to get help from divine powers then she starts using it. A lot of things go wrong with this approach, of course. It is during the battle of Sinegard that she uses her powers and the results are less than ideal but I think something in her finally feels accepted. I think, by the time, the war actually begins in full swing, the only thing Rin wants to be is to be useful. A lot of people take advantage of it and she, in her need to be needed, lets them. “What’s the worst that could happen?” “You’re so young,” he said softly. “You have no idea.”I loved the Cike, there are so many interesting characters in that group alone. Everyone is well aware of what communicating with gods and letting the gods in their minds mean. Altan, their leader, is also such a complicated character, you can’t help but feel bad for his circumstances however you also know exactly how many ways he’s going wrong about so many things. Basically due to bad decisions made by adults in that country, the children were left to make even worse decisions.Overall, I think every character shines with individualism and their backstories are so important too. The main characters Rin, Kitay, Nezha and Altan are so well written, they are each broken in their own ways and their ways of handling things is absolutely not healthy but it’s also the only way they know of. These characters are not easy to like, nor are they very comfortable to read as well but that’s what makes them so interesting and tragic. Their paths, in a way, were written before they were even born.The Poppy War is incredibly bold and daring and you can only go along for the ride, just hold on tight to your tissues and your heart, you are gonna need to be careful.TW and CW: war, drug use, substance addiction, self-harm, racism, misogyny, genocide, bullying, abandonment, abuse, animal death, animal cruelty, torture, murder of children and adults, rape, mutilation, human experimentation