The Poppy War

So it's a story about war that takes place in an Asian-inspired world, begins at a military school, with a “powerful” female protagonist. Sounds like it'd be right up my alley, but surprisingly I didn't really like it. Mostly because of the writing style.

The book starts off really promising, with a peasant girl acing an exam that lands her a spot in the prestigious military academy. Once you get past the first batch of classes, however, that's where it turns into a blur. Nearly everything is described in a vague way, even if it doesn't seem so at first glance. Aside from the strategy class, the lessons are only described briefly. Even the lore lessons, which is our protagonist's major, and the link it has to the more spiritual aspect of the story only made it even more unclear. Whenever the story turns to explore the spiritual realm / Pantheon and the path leading to it, I often find myself zoning out because it's too much of a blur for my mind to connect to.

The academy life ends abruptly once the second part of the book begins, and the third part only twists it further into an entirely different direction. I feel like if only the second and third parts were written for the next volumes, the story would've been better in terms of pacing. Once Rin chose which subject to pledge, the book just... quickly skips her following years in the academy, so there's not enough build-up and the war ends up feeling so sudden.

Didn't help that I played Sen no Kiseki and thought they did the whole “military school students thrown into war” thing much better.

As the protagonist, Rin goes from having my encouragement 100% to making me facepalm multiple times as the story progresses. Her frustrations were understandable at the beginning, but she progressively turns into the spitfire heroine who's rude to everyone for no particular reason, and I really don't like this type of protagonist. Maybe it is understandable considering what happened towards the end of the book, but I feel like her characterization could've been handled better.

The story is engaging though, so I'm hoping the writing will improve in the next books.