Not for the faint of heart. Well written book and I will be thinking about it for a while. It was a fast pase writing style and easy to get through. Warning: lots of war crimes and Chinese historical war references. Probably a lot of trigger warnings. ( )

This book had a very promising start with the poor peasant girl from a rural village who studies hard and tests her way into a prestigious military university in an effort to escape the arranged marriage that she was otherwise destined for. There is a big section of world and character building at the school which was very interesting. I was rooting for Rin to succeed.

And then the second half of the book features the start of a war and it feels like it is a completely different book. The tactics and war strategies that they have been studying for years appear to be thrown out the window when actual battle happens. There are a totally new set of characters to meet with little background information provided. Rin seems like a completely different person in the second half, much less confident and well as being really irritating. It felt like she bounced from situation to situation with no agency of her own and wildly varying thoughts of how to move forward.

There were few likeable characters once the fighting starts and things get really dark and violent. I was listening on audiobook so I turned it on when I was sitting in rush hour traffic (probably not a good thing--not sure what was more frustrating, this book or traffic) otherwise I might not have finished this book. The stated goal at the end of book 1 for the future books in the series does not interest me at all and I don't really like Rin very much so I'm not going to continue. This book didn't live up to all of the hype for me. ( )

3.5
good, but i wish i had read it instead of listened to the audiobook. i stroooongly believe i would've enjoyed it so much more if i didn't listen to it! sighs! ( )

I thought it was a very good book, but bit difficult towards the end. This is very much not a young adult book. I need to read reviews more thoroughly before I start books, since I went in thinking if was a Harry Potter type of thing with a scrappy upstart who goes to magic school! VERY MUCH NOT THAT AT ALL. Let's see, there was drug addiction. Genocide. Violence. War crimes. More drug addiction. More violence. More genocide. Yikes. Parents, if your children are reading this book it is really for adult audiences, with adult themes.

I liked the use of Chinese mythology and the historical context. The author based some of the book on events of the Second Sino-Japanese War, which I spent some time reading about when I finished the book. I will certainly read the next book in the series.

( )

A wonderful start to a series with tons of potential. It was very easy to get sucked into the story, and I found myself reading a good chunk of it in one sitting. The writing is accessible and engaging. You get a wonderful sense of Rin's desperation and her masochistic, obsessive drive to push herself beyond normal limitations. "Pain in exchange for power" is an overarching theme of the novel. Rin's early actions foreshadow the significantly larger stakes that unfold later in the novel. She's not an idol. She's not a pure hero that people would necessarily want to emulate. She's a highly flawed survivor who hangs out in that moral grey zone that's fun to roll around in.

The novel is split between a competitive academy setting and brutal warfare. Both sections of the novel have a distinct tone. Readers may find themselves preferring one above the other. The two settings are linked together by one of the story's strongest elements: shamanism and magic. The way this novel handles the use of "magic" is refreshing in its peril, as utilizing it comes with considerable and potentially cataclysmic repercussions. You quickly understand why they're referred to as "The Poppy Wars." The Poppy War itself is brutal, unforgiving, and heavily inspired by real life events in all their horror. Kuang pulls none of her punches in these grim sections.

My only critique lies in the fact that it doesn't always feel like a self-contained story that will naturally build into something more complex. You can easily see that elements of the story are left hanging for future sequels to resolve. Teasing is good, though some of the unresolved elements are pretty major and/or are rapidly introduced and then just as rapidly dropped in the last quarter of the novel. So it's less like teasing and more like someone smacking you in the back of the head and then running away really fast. Some of the B-string characters also take a hit here, especially Rin's merry band of superhero shamans, as they are introduced too quickly to really build comprehensive personalities and backstories.

All in all, though, it's a highly satisfying and enjoyable read. I especially like how the ending isn't conventional. I won't spoil anything, but you expect the "good guys" to behave in certain ways courtesy of excessive TV shows and novels dealing with these struggles. Rin, in keeping with her masochistic and borderline manic character, ignores all of these expectations and does her own thing with all the repercussions that comes with. And it's a highly refreshing tease of things to come.

Definitely looking forward to the sequels.

"Hello, I am praying," and "Please leave," formed into one of my favorite dialogue exchanges in a long time. ( )