I was so insanely disappointed with this book! I thought the first two in this series were amazing, but The Burning God was just a hot mess (pardon the pun). 

I was tempted to DNF it at around 60%, but wanted to continue as I'd invested so much time in the series. I wish I'd just read a plot synopsis instead. 

Most things were so anti-climactic, underdeveloped, or dwelt on for too long. What did I do to deserve this??

 

There were some good points, mainly towards the start of the book: 

1. It powerfully described the brutality of colonisation from the native's point of view

 2. I enjoyed Rin as an anti-hero (at the start of the book) 

And now for the bad points, of which there were many in a book that just seemed rushed in the writing, and such a drag to read:

 

1.

The Trifecta involvement seemed so trivial and badly thought out. It was as if Kuang was building them up for more involvement in books 1+2, then just decided she couldn't be bothered and killed them off. And the slog of travelling through the mountains and losing so many troops to get there was just dull and essentially pointless. Why even bring Riga into it at all??? I'm half convinced it was just for Kuang to bulk up the word count.

 2. More Trifecta thoughts
 - Daji's only purpose was to conveniently show up and get Rin out of situations, and only give her ideas she was already thinking of or would have come to herself.
 - I was hoping for more Jiang content, but he was hardly in it, and all he did was kill Riga.
 - Once again, what's the point of even including Riga if you're just gonna kill him within minutes of us meeting him??

 3. The entire book was just a whole load of fighting and travelling with no real outcomes, meaning nothing felt impactful. And because we're not even shown the fighting most of the time, the stakes felt non-existant.
 
 4.

Throughout the book it felt like there was no real conflict/high stakes. Rin was basically winning everything, and if not was fighting against Nezha, who I couldn't get behind as a real enemy.

 5. I didn't feel any connection to the new characters because they didn't get enough time, even though there was SO much time focused on traveling which would have been the perfect opportunity to get to know them more.
 
 6. The whole book was just the same narrative beats over and over again - Rin trusts someone, Rin gets betrayed, Rin gets cocky, Rin loses OR Rin wins but really she's lost. It was impressive how repetitive this was.

 7. Everything was so predictable and convenient, and by the last 20-30% I was eye-rolling almost every page at the amount if unoriginality in the writing 

8. Rin is either miserable or evil, and nothing else. It just gets BORING. 

9.

The Hesperians left Nikara WAY to easily at Arlong. A fire breathing god was nothing to them, but flood a city and that scares them off for good??

10. Rin's revenge on Petra (which would have been a good time to show Rin's evilness) was way too rushed. I wanted that to last! Not only be a couple of vague sentences.

11. You would expect Rin would have gained SOME humility by this point, but apparently not. However, she also was never villain enough in her POV if that's the way Kuang wanted her to go. If a character is going to be ruthless I want to feel it! Not just be shown a sometimes out of control, confused little girl.

12. Rin's stubbornness is literally JUST for conflict in the story, nothing else, it's so transparent.

13. The end was so anticlimactic, I felt nothing.

 

Having reflected some more, there wasn't enough fantasy in here. Compared to the other two, this was just a history textbook. All wars and politics, whereas the first two books in the series had a nice balance of both. 

In conclusion, this might be the most disappointed I've ever been after finishing a book. I'm planning on reading Babel soon, and I truly hope that it can redeem Kuang for me.