The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang: Book Review

I’ll be honest, long books intimidate me. I have the attention span of a peanut, so getting myself to sit down and read books longer than maybe 300-400 pages takes a lot of motivation. However, my favorite genre of books is fantasy. Fantasy books are notorious for being long. Life is great for me. But despite all this, with all the positive reviews of The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang, I knew I had to read it.

I’ll be honest, there was a lot about this book that made me put off reading it, like the genre, time period, and history. I knew so many people loved this story, but I was dragging my feet. I haven’t read many historical fantasies in my life, let alone adult historical fantasies. In fact, this one might be my first. So not only did the size intimidate me but the content as well, I was afraid the content of the book would leave me confused and lost. And when my mental health is poor, I have trouble concentrating on anything, let alone books, so I knew going into this book, that it might take me a while to finish it.

I couldn’t have been more wrong! I finished this book faster than I thought I would, and I enjoyed the ride too! This book was immersive, startling, and tense. The pages flew by as I was reading. It was the first time in a long time that I didn’t want to put a book down.

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Literati

I was gifted a copy of The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang in the April Literati subscription box, which in no way impacted my review. This is a subscription service that sends you a book each month. You also gain access to an app, which acts as an online book club, where everyone discusses the book. these discussions are spoiler-free and so much fun!

For more information about Literati, check out my post about it here! Or check out their website here!

I originally read this book in September of 2021, and it was so much fun discussing it again with new readers, and seeing everyone’s thoughts on this book!

Book Review of The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

Title: The Poppy War

Author: R.F. Kuang

Publisher: Harper Voyager

Release Date: May 1, 2018

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Rating: 5/5 Stars

Content Warnings: War, gore, rape, violence against babies, arson, drug use/addiction, experiments on humans

The Poppy War is R.F. Kuang’s debut novel and is one of the most well-developed and well-thought-out books I have read in a long time. Everything about this book screamed professionalism. The characters, setting, and the plot was all cohesive which made it so easy to fall into the story. It is one of those books that completely wraps you up in the story, causing you to forget the world around you.

As you know, I am a huge fan of good characterization. It impacts my feelings about every single book I read. In this novel, Kuang was able to create fully fleshed-out characters that could have been standing right in front of me. Each character was unique, interesting, and dynamic. There are no inherently good or inherently bad characters because that’s not how reality is. This book is set during a war, where the protagonists do both good and bad things.

With this book set around war, I was impressed at how the author could get me so on board with everything that was going on. I consider myself a pacifist, and seeing people kill each other for some “ruler” or “government” has never sat right with me. But somehow, I never had issues reading this aspect of the book. Obviously, it was grueling reading about the violence in the book, but I was so fully immersed in the story and characters that I needed to keep reading no matter how uncomfortable it made me. I did not like the decisions made by the main characters, but that didn’t deter me from reading and enjoying the story.

Speaking of being uncomfortable while reading, this book was rough. Reading this made me think deeper about war than I have ever had before. I now understand why people were so adamant about categorizing this book as adult, there are so many difficult subjects tackled in The Poppy War. I include a short list of some of the trigger warnings for this book at the beginning of this book review, but please do your own research. Visit this page for an extensive list. This book is dark and it is explicit on the page. Keep yourself safe first!

Overall, this story was incredibly well-written and it was easy to escape into the pages. There are two more books in this series that I absolutely plan on reading. The end of The Poppy War left on a huge cliffhanger, and I can’t wait to see the crew sail off into their next adventure. I know the main character, Rin, is going to go through some self-growth and realization about who she is in relation to her god. I can’t wait for all the darkness.

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This book really got me in the mood for some high fantasy with immersive world-building. I just started reading An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir, which I have been meaning to read for a while now. I am already a few chapters in and I’m loving the storytelling.

Although, I do have the habit of starting series, without ever finishing them, and I want to try and avoid that with this series, The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang. If I wait too long in between starting the sequel, I will forget every single thing I read.

What fantasy novels have you been loving recently? Let me know in the comments below!