Wow. That's literally all I can say about this book. Well no, that's a lie because I'm going to try to put my thoughts into a review, but overall the biggest things that comes to mind is WOW. This review can also be found on my blog here:

First off, tons of content/trigger warnings here: War, genocide, militant behavior, graphic descriptions of violence and rape, infanticide, dismemberment, physical, verbal and emotional abuse from a superior, foster parent neglect, classism, colorism, racism, bullying, removal of reproductive parts, ableism, drug consumption and addiction, self-harm, suicide, public execution, torture, PTSD.

This book was intense. From the moment that we meet Rin, she explodes off of the page, but not necessarily into our hearts. She's neglected, headstrong, a bit naive, stubborn, reckless, and countless other things that it seems she refuses to grow out of throughout the book. She's certainly a flawed character and someone I would consider an unreliable narrator because she's so blinded by her own feelings, ambitions and fear. She dreams of escaping her station as a foster child in one of the poor villages in order to get away from her opium dealing foster family. She manages to test into one of the most prestigious Sinegard military school and is sure this means she'll finally be treated as a person. Not likely. When she reaches the school she immediately realizes that nearly everyone there only sees her as a peasant from the Rooster Province who doesn't belong. She struggles to keep up with her classmates, battles against her teachers and manages to capture the attention of the eccentric master on campus. What Rin doesn't realize is that everything she's experienced in school is only just the beginning.

The Federation of Mugen wages war a few years into Rin's studies and it quickly becomes clear that she was not prepared for any of this. Kuang's description of the war is brutal. I'll be honest and say that not everyone will have the stomach for it or be able to push through. She does not approach it lightly, but instead is sure to expressly describe just how tragic, disturbing, and violent it is. She also includes the mental and physical toll that the war takes on everyone involved from the innocent bystanders to the soldiers themselves.

In the midst of Rin being thrown into a nearly impossible war, she also battles with herself. From the moment she escaped the Rooster Province she's been fighting for power. The power to succeed, the power to overcome, and the power to overthrow those who think she is beneath her. She no longer wants to be helpless or incapable and she believes she's found the solution to her hearts desire when she discovers shamanism. For as long as she can remember, she's though that the gods were just figureheads with no real power, but she soon learns she was mistaken. In order to get the power she seeks, she'll have to give herself over to the gods, but what if the outcome of that is even more terrifying than the alternative?

Rin and those around her struggle with the implications of everything they've been taught and everything that they've done or will do. Suddenly petty squabbles are nothing, power that once promised freedom becomes suffocating, and the heroes that the characters worship or look up to become nothing but heartbreaking and ordinary. I think that this was real to the core. War is messy and gruesome. There are no real victors and before you know it you've become the very people you're fighting. Is winning really worth the cost? That's a question that the reader and the characters, especially Rin, must ask over and over again throughout this book. The brutalness is not just reserved for the battlefield. Sometimes the people closest to us are the ones who brutalize us the most and not just physically.

I honestly cannot wait to pick up the next book. The religious and fantastical elements in this book were amazing and I think they flowed extremely well with the overall plot and tone of the story. Cause and effect is a big element of this book whether in the supernatural elements or the historical fiction/military elements. Just....WHEW, this was a ride.