I want to start off this review by stating that they’re trigger warnings for rape, self harm, genocide, grotesque violence/ war themes, child/ fetal abuse, general abuse, and racism within this story. It is detailed extensively too.
THIS BOOK IS HARD TO READ.
I’m not going to lie about that. It truly tears down all senses of censorship to show the actual brutality of war. The back of the ARC claims to be inspired by 20th century Chinese history, and I agree with that statement because they’re so many correlations. I’m not going to go into all of them, but some scenes are similar to historical events like The Rape of Nanjing and other events in Chinese history.
Now back to TPW.
The main character is Rin, and she is a war orphan forced to work (basically enslaved) for her adopted family’s shop aka opium business. When it becomes known that she’s to be married off to an old man and forced to have children, she decides to take the Keju, which is a test to determine those working in the government (fantastical version of the Civil Service Exam).
The story is separated into three sections and follows her journey from the results of that test to inevitable war. I’d recommend going in knowing nothing personally.
Anyway, I want to also state that this book is not for those accustomed to the YA genre. It is an dark fantasy adult book for a reason, and Rin actually makes a lot of decisions that are very complex and brutal. As I said before, the story holds nothing back in terms of the brutality of mankind.
On a completely separate note, the magic weaved within the story was EXCELLENT. I loved how Kuang describes the system and the inner workings of it. It wasn’t info dumpy or anything remotely close. I felt like I was learning at the same pace as Rin, which was expected and wonderfully realistic.
The best part. THE BEST PART.
Jiang.
He is my FAVORITE. His and Rin’s relationship and just him in general were the best aspects to this story. I have NEVER laughed more out loud in MY LIFE. I loved him and his antics, and the complete fact that he gives no qualms about anyone was truly remarkable. He’s just living his life with his own values. Iconic.
For how long the story was I have to give props to Kuang for writing a well-paced story. It was the perfect medium between fast and slow. The latter half of the novel shows intense scenes of war, and it is definitely hard to read. If you’d like to read this novel and skip the worst parts- just don’t read Chapter 21. I had to set the novel down to recuperate after finishing those pages.
Overall, this book was amazing, and I CANNOT wait for the sequel.