The Poppy War

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

Great story well written.Love the book and audiobook.

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

Ma meilleure lecture cette année!J'ai adoré ce monde inspiré de la Chine antique et très bien décrit; l'organisation politique et militaire, l'école et ses rivalités , la guerre, la géographie, la beauté des noms de lieux et des personnages, les Dieux et leur jugement des humains, la spiritualité, j'ai adoré lire sur tout ça dans ce récit divisé en trois parties.Avertissements : ce livre décrit des scènes de guerre, de violence, de racisme,de génocide et crimes contre l'humanité , de viols et d'utilisation de drogues..En point négatif je dirait que j'ai moins aimé l'héroïne principale Rin dans les 2ème et 3ème partie alors que je l'admirait au début du livre ( mise à part une décision qu'elle prend au sujet de son corps dont je peux comprendre la motivation mais qu en tant que femme et que mère m'a un peu, pas déçu mais derangé). A partir du milieu du livre elle qui était si forte au début commence à paniquer a l'approche de la guerre et ses pleurs, ce que je peux comprendre au vue du contexte mais du coup je n'ai pas réussi à savoir qui était Rin .Le point faible de manière générale de ce livre sont les personnages, il y en a très peu d'attachants , c'est sûrement normal c'est ce qui les rends humains et qui les opposent aux Dieux dans ce récit.Je conseille ce livre aux amateurs du genre fantastique et épique.J'espère que c'est une série, je veux une suite !!