The Burning God
Ratings296
Average rating4.2
Devastating and brilliant. Absolutely soul-crushing. The literary equivalent to watching a supernova go off. I'm in awe, I feel empty, and I am forever grateful that this series came into my life. Thank you, [a:R.F. Kuang 16820001 R.F. Kuang https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1563395354p2/16820001.jpg], I really don't have the words.
This is a fine ending to the trilogy. I didn't love it, even though this series managed to grab my attention so much that I devoured the whole thing in a couple days. There are many aspects I really enjoyed here, but I think my biggest problem was mainly that it felt overambitious.
This book was almost non-stop action. It went from plot point to plot point to plot point. Which is fine, but it just made me feel like this series would've really just been a whole lot better if Kuang had split this book into two.
It's intense, action-packed and it has the usual grimness you've come to expect by now. But unfortunately, it failed to deliver for me. I still really enjoyed it though. Looking forwrd to what R.F. Kuang cooks up next.
Let me start by saying that what R.F. Kuang has accomplished with this series is phenomenal. Her use of real historical events to tell the story of Rin and her connection to the gods is a work of art. These books deserve to be celebrated, and I completely understand why they are so hyped.
However, I didn't have as strong of a reaction to this series, and specifically this book, as most people have. These books are focused on this war that is going on between these nations, and it gets very technical and very political, which just isn't my thing. (Please keep in mind, this is just a personal preference, not a knock on the writing itself.)
The pacing of this book felt too fast paced. There were some major events that took place that I didn't feel like we had any time to mourn because the other characters had already moved on. While I understand that this is war and it is actually a fast paced environment, I feel like the characters hardly thought twice about some pretty major deaths and events.
Being in Rin's head was not an enjoyable place to be. As she devolves into her powers and becomes constantly paranoid, I was constantly wanting a breather from her. This is the point of this story, and Kuang succeeded on this. I really felt so conflicted the entire story on almost every decision that Rin made. She was at times impossible to sympathize with. The downside to everything being from Rin's perspective is that it felt extremely hard to gain any sort of emotional attachment to everyone that wasn't Kitay. Whenever there were deaths or other awful events taking place, it was hard to feel upset about it because Rin was so distant from everyone. Again, I understand that this is intentional because she is slowly losing touch with reality, but it made the stakes not feel very high for most of the book.
My biggest gripe with the book is all of part 2. The entire goal throughout this part did not pay off for me. When I finished the last page of part 2, I was just like “that's it?” I felt like this entire section was a let down.
The ending was perfect. While I didn't cry like most people, I really felt like the ending was warranted and I walked away from the book feeling like that was the proper ending. I think I suspected that that was going to happen, but I think Kuang executed this perfectly. I felt like it tied everything up really nicely.
All in all, I highly recommend this series to anyone that like historical fantasy. It is dark and emotional. However, know that this book has major trigger and content warnings for Self-harm - Suicide - Violent rape - Sexual assault - Murder - Massacres - Brutalization - Mutilation - Torture - Substance abuse - Abuse - Emotional abuse - Physical abuse - Relationship abuse - Human experimentation - Chemical warfare - Genocide.
It's more of a 4.5 this time but I'm obviously rounding up.
CW: depictions of war, violence, gore, burning, talk of past rape, cannibalism, famine
Finally, this brilliant trilogy comes to an end. I was absolutely stunned when I received the ARC for this finale, because despite reading both the previous books only last year, it was one of my most anticipated books of 2020 and I was quite dreading how it would end. And it was everything I expected it could be.
Kuang is a masterful writer and we as readers can feel the growth in her craft and skill in each subsequent book in this series. I was gripped from page one, and despite being more than 600 pages long, I really read it end to end in one go because I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep if I didn't know how it ended. The story is engaging, brutal and intense, surprising me at many turns and also making me paranoid about what horrors lay in the upcoming chapters. The author also does an excellent job at creating a bleak atmosphere, a country ravaged by war, and a people who have very few options left for survival. It's utterly heartbreaking to read at times, but that's always been the strength of this trilogy. And the less I talk about the military strategies and battle sequences in the book, the better - because they are exquisitely crafted and I can say that this is definitely where the author shines the most.
Rin is the most frustrating character I must have read in the past couple of years, and I still couldn't help but hope that there was a light at the end of the tunnel for her. She is fierce and brave but also ruthlessly pragmatic, who knows the consequences of having her power but still revels in exercising it, who's thoughts and ideas are so off putting sometimes that we forget why she is the way she is and how much trauma she has gone through to be in this situation. She really is the perfect anti heroine and I have such a love-hate relationship with her, that she is gonna be very memorable to me for a long time to come.
What keeps us reminded of Rin's humanity are the side characters - Kitay remains the moral center of the story, with his conviction to try and do the best thing possible in every circumstance and not indulge in unnecessary violence; and his relationship with Rin is probably gonna be my all time favorite friendship depiction for a long time to come. The absolute trust and belief they share in each other is amazing to read about and I'm gonna miss it now that the trilogy is over. We also get more of Venka in this finale and I thought that was a brilliant choice - she provides kind of a counter to Rin's personality and despite being abrasive herself, the moments they share have some tenderness and it made for some quite reflective breaks in between intense situations.
We also get to know more about the history about the trifecta, especially Daji and Jiang but it still felt a little incomplete to me and I wanted to know about how they came to be and their falling out. We also get to know Nezha better and while it made me understand some of his decisions as well as his helplessness in certain circumstances, I still can't like him. And I maybe can feel why Rin has such conflicting emotions about him and doesn't always make rational decisions in confrontations with him, but I still hate the guy. There are also many other new characters introduced who had significant impacts on the story, and I was in awe of the author's ability to be able to do that in the finale of a series.
All the themes and the history that the author brings to light through this fantasy world has always been the major highlight of this series for me. While TPW was a parallel to the second Sino-Japanese war and TDR was the beginning of the Chinese civil war, in this finale we see more of the parallels to the peasant revolution, rise of Mao Zedong, the Long March, and some indications of the devastation caused by the Great Famine. They all make for a difficult reading experience even when reading in a fictional world, so I can't even imagine how brutal the actual events must have been in early and mid 20th century China.
Kuang never romanticizes the effects of war and this book shows more of it, without ever feeling gratuitous. The bigger picture of a war maybe for higher ideals like freedom and independence, but the devastation it causes in terms of unimaginable violence, deaths, food scarcity, homelessness and just overall trauma is very realistically depicted, and it creates very vivid pictures in our head which are hard to forget.
But just like in TDR, the thing that made me most angry was the depiction of western colonization through the Hesperians - how the west's belief in their moral superiority and Christianity's unending efforts to convert have decimated age old local traditions and cultures, robbing them of their uniqueness and making them all homogenized and in an image of the west, but also never equal to them.
In conclusion, this was a near perfect finale with intricate amalgamation of history and fantasy, spectacular military strategy and action sequences on both material and spiritual planes, and a host of amazing characters who make the most brutal choices imaginable in a merciless war. I really had no predictions about how it would end but when it all concluded the way it did, it made the perfect sense in my head and there can't be anything more satisfying in the conclusion of a beloved series. If you are a fan of the previous two books, I obviously don't need to convince you to read this one. But if you are someone who loves grimdark/military fantasy novels with very realistic depictions of war, then you should totally checkout this trilogy. I would also definitely recommend reading a bit about the history involved in creating this fantasy world, or checkout this brilliantly researched post by Tiffany - just so you can better appreciate the depth behind the storytelling and the unusual choices the author makes to bring this story to life.
stayed up until 4:30 am to finish this ARC. absolutely floored. this series has so much to say about power & history. how does one book feel like a death march and a signal flare and a full-fledged mythos all at once? struggling for words at how haunting and terrible and inevitable it all felt at the end.
BOY did Kuang deliver on this one. It's like she took all of the best bits of the Poppy War and The Dragon Republic (two of my faves btw) and got rid of 90% of their weaknesses to create this incredible, POWERHOUSE of a finale!!!! That being said, The Burning God is definitely not without flaws (as all books are). Still I recommend to all fantasy lovers!
Ok to start, literally Rin is icon queen of badass magic and god-like power and all around fierce opponent. One of my favorite parts about this series is how Kuang writes Rin as an anti-hero, or as a flawed character in general. Like, Rin is genuinely scary at times, but still you kind of want to root for her? Without giving to o much away I feel like Burning God did an incredible job of toying that line between rooting for Rin and genuinely second-guessing whether she is the leadership that her people need. So— incredible anti-hero who is bordering on villain status (in a good way).
The plot was so clear and intentional in this the Burning God, which was something I definitely felt was missing in Dragon Republic. Whereas DR really felt like a filler book (no shade), it was obvious that the Burning God had a really clear, defined plot. The motivation of each character was apparent, and all of it checked out logically (to me). Another improvement on Dragon Republic was that Kuang got rid of a lot of the fluff. The Burning God is just straight up action, character development, and story building. She got rid of a lot of the randomness that seemed to pop up in Dragon Republic and kept the focus on a really clear path forward.
The fight scenes, as usual, were SPECTACULAR. Every fireball, every weapon, every war tactic, was so easy to imagine that I was completely immersed in the story. The god powers are magnified like, by 100% in this book and just, wow.
I'd like to thank Netgalley and @harpervoyager for the e-ARC of the book in exchange for an honest review. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the series below!