The Poppy War Is Not For Me

I'm not one to read books on war, but I'd heard nothing but ridiculously positive things about this book plus I learned afterwards that it's actually based on a real war! And so I checked it out from the library, started reading, switched to audiobook (the older I get, the more intimidated I am by huge books), and finally finished reading/listening over the course of several commutes to uni and forty-five minutes spent reading the last forty physical pages because I have no patience. Was it a great book? Most assuredly. Did I enjoy it? Only the first half.

This book is written and plotted brilliantly - something made more amazing by the fact that the author was a mere 22 years old at the time of publishing. The first half takes place in an academy and depicts a story akin to something like Nevernight or Harry Potter, except it's Chinese-inspired and definitely much bloodier than HP. Needless to say, I loved that part. The main character Rin is a badass who thinks twice about nothing - not necessarily a good thing - and will go to any lengths to get what she wants. She's also surrounded by several interesting masters and students and yes, I did identify some HP counterparts (one of the masters had a twinkle in his eye at one point and I was like "why hello there, Dumbledore!"). During this half, I enjoyed my commutes to school because I was really into the story and whatever crazy thing Rin decided to do next. But as soon as it came time for her to leave the Academy, I grew bored. 

Characters are dying? Okay. Rin is being stupid? Okay. She keeps saying she loves Altan and she probably means it platonically because there is literally zero chemistry between them? I mean, I don't like Altan, but fine. People have said that in the last portion of the book, the plot outshines the characters, but honestly, I was disinterested in both. And it's not because this is a bad book - no, definitely not. Objectively, it's brilliant. But I was right when I held off on reading this because it didn't sound like my kind of book. Also, I didn't really feel super connected to any of the characters: Rin is cool, but I don't love her, and I never really became invested in her. As such, I won't be reading the second book in this series, but I don't for a moment regret having read this; it was a story of such breadth, and I'm in awe regardless of the fact that I didn't enjoy this book nearly as much as I'd hoped to.