THE POPPY WAR BY RF KUANG: A BOOK REVIEW

Note: This review is spoiler free
Book: The Poppy War
Author: RF Kuang
Genre: Fantasy
Age: For readers 14 and up 
Rating: 3/5

What. Just. Happened?

I will forever be mad at how the Poppy War turned out. I was ready to risk it all and give it 5 stars based on the first half of the book alone and then suddenly a two year timeskip plus the removal of all the side characters threw all of that away. 😑

What I LOVED:

Rin and Nezha: 
The ONLY time I will support enemies to lovers is if it’s academic rivals to lovers. Rin and Nezha did not disappoint 😌 
Nezha to Rin: “You’re nothing.”
Me: What he ACTUALLY means: “You’re everything”. And they say romance is dead 😍 

Spoilers: The part where they fought together to defend Sinegard during the first attack literally had me SCREAMING for real 😭 

“Together? Together” 
SJDFKAJF *CRYING, SCREAMING, THROWING UP AND PUNCHING THE WALLS RN 😭*


But all the buildup for their relationship was literally thrown out the window in the second half. It sucks. 🤧 

Plot (only the first half of the book tho. The second half sucked): I LOVE fantasy books with an academic setting. I can’t stress enough how perfect the first half of the book was!! Neglected, impoverished girl with a natural talent gets into a prestigious academy? Academic rivals fighting for the top spot at the military academy? SIGN ME UP 😤  
I took me only a few hours to read the first half because it was that good. Which is why it’s such a travesty that this book turned out to be the way it is 😞 

What I didn’t like: 

The Cike: Where’s Kitay? And why has he been replaced by these irrelevant characters? 
For some reason the author thought it was a good idea to get rid of all the important side characters in the second half of the book and replace them with some weirdos that I could not bring myself to care about. It felt like I was reading a whole new book.
The Plot in the Second Half: This is where everything went downhill. It was unbelievably slow. NOTHING happened.
As if replacing all the side characters wasn’t enough, the author also thought it was a good idea to timeskip to 2 years in the future. In doing so, she skipped the academy plotline and brought Rin to some gloomy, underground cave away from everyone in the first half of the book. Boo 😐 👎

After she joined the Cike I just started skimming the entire book and then I just entirely gave up 75% into the book just because it was so mind numbingly boring. Life is too short to spend time reading mediocre books 
🤷‍♀️

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