The Poppy War

I hate that I hated this because I love Kuang's other stuff and I was so interested, in theory, with the historical aspect of this. I went into this already on the wrong foot: I forced myself to reread the first 60 pages after DNFing it a few months ago. And it just pains me to reread stuff, so I was trudging through it. But I really expected things to pick up. It certainly did. 400 pages in.

I enjoyed the interpersonal relationships and internal stuff here. Meaning, I loved getting to know the characters, how they spoke and acted, and interacted with one another. Their dialogue, their banter and arguments, their habits and movements, were all very well done. In fact, the only dynamic I was attached to here was Atlan and Rin. It felt like when you're 10 and on vacation and think that you, a small child, are attracting the 23 year old lifeguard by doing handstands in the pool. I mean, that painful secondhand embarrassment of watching a crush that could never come to fruition. Mostly because I wasn't sure their age gap (I can't imagine it was more than 1-3 years), but also because it was painfully obvious to me that Rin thought they were friends (was she so deluded to think so?). His death was surprising to me because she set up the perfect romance arc. But I can see why it wouldn't go there. Once we'd gotten to Altan and Rin alone (going to the prison) their relationship was the only thing really keeping me going.

I honestly just felt really disconnected from the history and god element of this. It's obvious that Kuang was trying to give us all the keys to understanding the war (we get an ACTUAL history lesson) but I just kept getting lost. There are so many characters and they started to blend together. I am really interested in the story of Nanking though. I actually own The Rape of Nanking and didn't even know it.

The war going on in the book though, was kind of foggy in my head. I think I just am not interested in reading about war, especially in a fiction sense? Or maybe I'm just a little slow and need it spelled out for me even slower. I thought the beginning was very slow paced and the spiritual moments where Rin meets with the gods were so abstract that there was nothing tangible to them (for me). In other words, I found it very difficult to visualize. I was ready to hunker down and tackle this entire series but I think I'm good. In place of that, I might just reread Babel....basically my favorite book of all time