Wow. This was really quite a ride. And now I struggle to put my conflicting feelings into words, but I guess I'll try.

I really wanted to like this book, and the thing is, it has all the makings of a dark fantasy novel for me to love. (There were parts that were incredibly disturbing to read, especially knowing that they were essentially a retelling of actual history, but hey, I've seen the content warnings and knew what I was getting into.) I like dark fantasy, on occasion. I like fantasy world build upon cultural backgrounds different from the "so, this is basically Western Europe but fantasy" usual. I like flawed, tragic antihero type protagonists who go from "genocide is horrible" to "so I'll genocide you right back." I like stories about gods and magic. I like magic that comes at a high cost.

This book has it all, and yet in many regards, it falls flat.

Maybe it's the somewhat uneven pacing. Maybe it's the somewhat messy worldbuilding; at the start it seemed like a medieval-ish world (although some of the language used, particularly in dialogue, kept making me feel like this was a later period), then as the story progressed and the author drew more and more from the actual 20th century history... well, I'd like a smoother transition from "we're starting the story in a medieval military school" to "chemical warfare and science labs." Occasional namedropping straight from the real world didn't help immersion, either.

Or maybe it's the characters. I always connect to the stories through characters first and foremost, and The Poppy War didn't make it easy. Among the secondary cast, there were some characters who held my attention, all of them introduced pretty early on: Altan, Kitay, Nezha. Others had their moments, but didn't feel fully developed to me. Rin, the protagonist, was the hardest case. I expect the protagonist to be the one who anchors me to the story. I don't have to like them, but I have to get them. Rin was really hard to get for at least half of her story.

Initially, she wants to escape her crappy foster family and the prospect of an arranged marriage. And her only way to do so is by acing the super complex exam and getting into a super prestigious academy. Except it's not really her only prospects. She thinks of a few more in passing as she waits for the exam results. But that's the only one she cares for. Why exactly? It's... not very clear. Then when she's at the academy surrounding by people who outrank her from birth, she wants to prove herself and show them she's worthy of being here, which I get... until she suddenly decides that what she really wants is power. Okay, that's a great motivation, why does she want it? What exactly she's going to do with it? What's her reason to want power? Um, she just wants it.

It's only more or less mid-book that she can explain with both words and consistent action why she wants power: because then there's no one she won't be able to save. From about that point, I was drawn a lot more into the story and more invested into the events of it and Rin's quest for power (and the inevitable corruption it brings). The story still felt somewhat scattered, uneven, rocky, but at least the protagonist finally had a consistent motivation. If I were this invested from the beginning, the flaws re: pacing, worldbuilding, and plotting would be a lot easier to overlook. Unfortunately, I'd already spent half of the book noticing them all before I could get the protagonist.

I think the main problem for me here is that there's so much crammed into one book. Perhaps if it were split into two distinct novels, each of those two hypothetical books would flow a lot better, there'd be room for better character development, tighter plotting, and more coherent worldbuilding. It's not about word count, mind; more about the structure. It's like there are two stories, the one that starts in chapter one and ends somewhere in Part II, and another one, the sequel to the first one, that tries to start early in Part II, and they kind of overlap awkwardly.

Reading this book, overall, was like eating a salad made of all my favorite ingredients, but in the wrong proportion.

I still want to read the sequel sometime.