The Poppy War

I finally understand the hype!

Part 1 of The Poppy War reads like any other YA fantasy book. Angsty teens trying to get ahead in school, a strange and enigmatic mentor, one character the protagonist hates and wants to beat at all costs etc. etc. You get it. Nothing especially unique. However, I thought it was a clever way to setup the world and the politics, give us some info dumps, give us a sneak peek of the magic system and show us the cocoon our characters live in.
(If you're thinking of picking this book up, do not dnf at this point ‘cause the story takes off immediately after and we get thrown into the grim dark world this book promises.)

Part 2 and 3 I was truly not ready for.
Before I read this book, I looked up the history of the two Opium Wars and the Sino-Japanese war and I that really enhanced my reading experience.
The way the magic system is built around opium consumption is brilliant. Our characters are forced into battle and undergo such trauma. My goodness!

This book shows us the atrocities of war and the effects it has on human minds and how helpless one can feel. It depicts loss and grief and the thirst for revenge. And as the characters are amid this chaos and trauma, how no one can answer the question “Why”. It's brutality in the guise of patriotism. The execution was fantastic in my opinion. It felt very raw and alarmingly real.

Now coming to things that I think could have been better.
I felt like we missed most of our character growth. We saw our characters in school and suddenly friendships have been built, our characters are stronger and are different people altogether. I wish I was on that journey with them.
Altan! God! I wish I got his POV sometimes instead of Rin's all the time. He would have made for a very interesting morally grey character to follow but that's not necessary a con. I just wish I had his POV.

So yeah, the pacing and jumping around aside, this book was brilliant. The writing was pretty darn good and the audiobook narration, even more so. She made me cry. That's how good the voice acting was.

For the amount I've thought about the story, I think it deserves 5 stars. Onlllyyyy not giving it a 5 ‘cause it started off as a 2.5-3 for me. 4 is still fantastic though.

Definitely worth reading.