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booksonmars 's review for:

The Burning God by R.F. Kuang
3.0
adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
this review is gonna be also on the series as a whole, considering it's the last book. throughout reading these, i've had the feeling that i'm supposed to like this series: it objectively has good writing, an ezpansive worldbuilding and characters with insurmontable depth. but there's always a few been niggling pieces that have stopped me from loving it instead of liking it. 

what i liked:
  • the circular structure of it all, the way 'history moved in such vicious circles', and the mirroring between the trifecta and the rin/kitay/nezha of it all
  • rin and kitay's relationship has been so precious and tender to read, platonic love in the most terrible and tragic form
  • venka. just venka

what i didn't like:
  • rin's growth felt a little stunted: she'd choose not to do something, and when that choice would come back to bite her she'd regret not having taking the opportunity to do something. this has kinda been a repetition throughout most of the series, with a little resolution towards the end, but i wish we'd had her learning more from her mistakes
  • i mean this in the nicest way possible but there is something fundamentally wrong with rebecca for the amount of grief she caused me over that ending
  • i've never really been that convinced on rin and nezha's relationship, and the relationships shown throughout the series, apart from rin and kitay's
  • regarding the trifecta i wish their ending was less abrupt, with more of a resolution. it felt like they built up riga and then had him there for only a few scenes
  • so many open questions on present characters like chaghan, and those in the past, like tearza
  • in all seriousness, i've never really liked the fantasy ending where
    the man wins in the end
     

it seems like there's more that i disliked than liked but i did enjoy reading this book, props to rfk for the sheer amount of prowess needed to write a book this packed with historical strife and suffering. i'm interested to see if the rumours of a new book in this series is true, but i can't forget the number of times it felt like i had to push through and finish this book, making it more of a struggle than something i enjoyed reading. the jury's still out on whether i'd recommend this book.