The Poppy War

Author: R. F. Kuang

Who Picked the Book: Christina

One-sentence summary: A village orphan accomplishes her dream of attending military school where she learns of her special abilities that can both help her country in war, but could also destroy her and those she loves. 

B.A.D. Girls Book Rating: 6

Our favorite thing about it: Some interesting "thought experiments" about what is the best thing to do in certain situations. 

Our least favorite thing about it: It was hard to get into the book because we didn't like or care about Rin (the main character) or really any of the other characters. 

Main Topics of Discussion: War, Psychedelics, Spirituality, Moral/Ethical decisions, Dehumanizing, Enemy/Hero, Victory & Revenge, Wisdom

Our favorite quote: “I have become something wonderful, she thought. I have become something terrible. Was she now a goddess or a monster? Perhaps neither. Perhaps both.”

Notes: We all had issues with this book, even though several of us really expected to like it. And all of us said we were not interested in continuing this trilogy. Our first issue was the main character, Rin. She just was not easy to identify with and frankly, not likeable. Sometimes that works. This time it did not work for us. She was, in fact, and anti-hero in this story, which is interesting, but makes it hard to root for her. And the secondary characters did not really make up for this - we didn't connect with any of them either. 

We thought the Phoenix imagery was really one-sided. The book focused on the fire and destructive side of the Phoenix, but made no mention or focus on the rebirth that Phoenixes usually represent. Likewise, the whole book was devoid of any kind of hope.

Some of the book failed for us simply because of form, not substance. There were some pacing issues for us with Part II - it was slow and too long. The action of the first and last parts felt paced better. But sometimes it was substance that bothered us: we did not love all the battling and especially did not love chapter 21 with it's very gratuitous and graphic depictions of war crimes. One could argue that these atrocities set up the central plot point of the book - the decision that Rin ultimately had to make about whether to give in to the Phoenix god or not. But, even if that is the case, we still did not like reading about it at all. 

The parts that were somewhat interesting were the issues that Rin was struggling with: to choose "victory and revenge or wisdom, understanding, and enlightenment" as her master, Jiang, put it. Weighing the darkness of what humans are capable of against the darkness that the god(s) could unleash was, at least, an interesting problem.

One of the main themes was not only accurate, but interesting as well - the dehumanization of the enemy. This is what humans do to justify their acts of violence and Rin was no different. That the gods stripped the shamans of their humanity to make them "vessels of the divine" was yet another aspect of dehumanization that was interesting to explore. 

Memorable Meeting Moments: Stephanie took us to Delucca Pizza where we had gaucho-style pizza for dinner. Then we went to Legacy Hall for our meeting discussion.

What We Ate: Many, many pizzas, including dessert pizzas. We unanimously said that the best savory pizza was the Hot Sopressata. And the best dessert pizza was the Nutella.