Play Book Tag discussion

The Poppy War byR.F. Kuang - 3* - My Review

This book is a combination of young adult fantasy adventure and historical fiction set in Asia. It is also a coming-of-age story of teenage Rin, who transforms her life from rural shop girl to a key player in the titular Poppy War. It is set in a fantasy-facsimile of China and contains many parallels to real historic events.

It is a long book that covers a lot of territory and many topics, many of which are standard fare in young adult literature (misfit girl finds her verve, boarding school drama, fantasy world-building, and heroic actions during war). During all these experiences, our heroine develops her knowledge, skills, and character, meeting challenge after challenge. She also has a darker side. She develops her shamanic skills in folklore and there are numerous references to Chinese mythology.

My reaction to this book is a little less enthusiastic than many of my friends. While I enjoyed it overall, several segments seem overwrought and melodramatic. I feel like it draws on too many stereotypical premises without much nuance or subtlety. This is the first book of a trilogy, and I am not inspired to read the next two. Perhaps these types of fantasy adventures are just not in my wheelhouse, so I am chalking this one up to personal taste. I liked it but didn’t love it. This book was R.F. Kuang’s debut and I can definitely see her growth as an author in her more recent works (Babel, Yellowface – both of which I highly recommend).

I totally agree, although I still rated it pretty high (if I remember correctly) because I was so impressed with the world-building and loved the tough female character. But I keep getting it mixed up with a couple other female-lead fantasy books set in Asia that came out / or I read them about the same time.

If you had small issues with this one, Joyce, book 2 will be along the same lines, perhaps worse-so much so for me that I did not read book 3 and have no plans to do so.

Joanne wrote: "If you had small issues with this one, Joyce, book 2 will be along the same lines, perhaps worse-so much so for me that I did not read book 3 and have no plans to do so."

Thanks for the advice. I will likely read anything she writes in the future based on her recent books, but I won't be reading the sequels to this one.

Meli, I think you would enjoy both Babel and Yellowface!

@Joy D - looking forward to both!

Agree with Joanne, I read all three in the trilogy and the first was by far the best and book 3 was definitely the least enjoyable for me.