Book Look: The Poppy War by R.F Kuang

It almost has the same problems as "Songbirds" - The establishing 2/6ths is great, then there is a lot of slogging for about 250 pages. And this book is about 580 pages long.

I have no idea if we can call this a YA novel, simply because of all that happens. There are graphic depictions of drug use, murder, torture, rape, and while it's not every other page, it does hit you hard when you read it.

This is essentially a book about war and mythology, and I'm glad there was no shying away from the war aspect. It was made clear that Rin, the main character, could be sold off to some old man to be a child bride. No shying away from it, no "we have to use coy language".

It took me weeks to read it because there is just so much of everything besides the actual violence. The explanations. The inner monologue. It started off so well and now I'm just going "Where is an editor?"