The Dragon Republic

This is by far one the greatest books I've read. Perhaps it is because I took a break from reading for a few years, only picking up two or three books a year, but that was phenomenal!

We continue with Rin on her journey now to the Dragon Republic. During this chapter in her young life, she has her Cike(group of Assassins) but she wants to be more. Do more. She literally wants to be controlled because she sees herself as a weapon. If the Dragon Warlord, Vaisra wants to use her, then he can since he is providing her and her team with a bed, food, and jobs.They each have a common enemy: Empress Su Daji.This book has a bit more slightly, very slightly --potential lovey-dovey scenes, but again it is something that is hugely subtle. I gripped the book tightly in my hand as I wondered allowed "Why did this person betray her? Why did they have to do that?"I love how the author continues to never shy away from the horrific downsides of a war. I mean, is there any upside? She does this tactfully and her writing/dialogue is clear and transitions smoothly from sentence to sentence. R.F. Kuang is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers.The Dragon Republic was painful, beautiful, horrendous, sketchy, and addicting. I am sure the conclusion to this trilogy will be just as explosive.

***4.25***OverallOk, I have been ruminating on this review for the past 24 hours trying to figure out how I felt about this book. The truth is I really really liked it. HOWEVER, it is dark and depressing and I had to take quite a few breaks. My girl Rin, cannot catch a break, it is one thing after another. No wonder she is so angry most of the time. I totally get it. While reading this book I also read about 3 other super lighthearted books to keep my spirit up, which in turn made it take about a week for me to finish it. The book is well written at a medium pace and does move through scenes quite quickly. The battles are pretty detailed and I wont lie and say I didn’t skim through some of the strategy portions.Like the first book, The Poppy War, this book is split into 3 separate parts. Rin does grow from a broken shell of a being to a much more confident and competent one. After defeating the Federation Rin finds herself a pawn in yet another war. SO MUCH happens and man I kind of think Rin just needs a real good hug and a long cry. I love her relationship with Kitay, and I think after reading the ending can say that Nezha is up in the air.CoverI have the white hardcover edition and I like it. Its pretty stark but it’s interesting.RecommendationIf you read the first book and loved it, obviously give this a try. These books are dark, there is not very many pages of joy or lightheartedness or happiness and definitely at no point was I laughing along with any of the characters. There is no romance in this book so know that going in. With all that said. I feel like this is a book I would recommend to specific people. It is definitely not for everyone.

The plot and everything are chef's kiss. It came in great condition and I'm just so very happy that the delivery went smoothly. :)

I had significant issues with The Poppy War. While I appreciated the storytelling and grimdark nature I found a lot of things about it pretty uneven. The pacing and especially the tone shifted wildly from part one to part three so much that they almost felt like completely separate books. I also had a really tough time with the characters that I felt switched between bland and hateable in the case of Rin. Thankfully book 2 was better in almost every conceivable way.Right away the first thing to note is that the uneven tone of book one is not an issue here. It's one cohesive narrative that is both well paced clear in its intentions. This is a grimdark war story from page one. This book is full of combat that pulls no punches. While there may not be the level of brutality that was displayed in part 3 of book 1, this book is consistently heavy and violent.The other real positive for me here and the reason it climbed to 5 stars after some very mixed feelings early on is that the execution of the story and expansion of the world and villains was extremely engaging. The last 150 pages of this book are about as close to a grimdark version of a "Sanderlanche" as you will find. Even when I thought the climax was over and we were getting falling action Kuang brought it again. Besides all of that new story elements were introduced here that really hooked me in and made me invested in spite of some of the books drawbacks.What still didn't work for me here was really only one thing and it's the characters. They continue to be pretty flat for me, and I find reading Ron to be at times completely infuriating. Her personality is more grating than any character I think I have ever read which makes it hard for me to enjoy sometimes and an break my immersion. It's hard to root for someone that always mouths off to her superiors with no consequences, and acts like a complete jerk to her friends when sympathy is called for. That being said I realize this is all very intentional and well written so it's hard for me to knock the book for it. Also the story here is so damn good, the conclusion especially, I'm able to overlook my character issues. Also, I felt the ending changed my view on Rin slightly, and I'm more excited to see how I feel when reading book 3.If you liked or were even middling on TPW I would definitely recommend The Dragon Republic.

The first book (a trilogy) starts with the story of a young girl from the hinterland arriving, despite predictable disadvantages - a brown skinned Cindarella - at a high-class university where she (again predictably) has to go through the "usual stuff" to prove herself worthy. Then various powers including gods, magic, and evil, white-skinned people from the West turn up, and our heroine has to battle them, too. It all gets bloody - and bloody boring. For a hero/heroine to keep a grip on the reader, he or she ought to show some interesting development, maybe a growing sense of empathy, compassion. Instead, it's all a never ending, bloodshedding fight despite the author's rather unsuccessful attempts at claiming otherwise.I've read all three books; unfortunately, the first is the best...Books like these aren't doing anything good for fantasy literature.

Spoiler FreeI don’t think I have ever read a book where I don’t know how to feel about the main protagonist. I hope this is purposeful, because it’s brilliant!The decisions Rin makes often make me want to shout at the book as it’s obvious that she’s letting her emotions get the better of her – that she’s either being lied to or can’t see the obvious threat because she’s so angry.That being said, Rin’s friendships are wonderful. She’s never better than when she’s talking with her friends (no names because of possible spoilers).The plot of this book is fantastic! It’s one of the main reasons I liked this book more than The Poppy War. We go to war again, but Rin is now on the offensive. It’s fascinating to watch as the chess pieces are moved around the board, and to see how the decisions of the people on top of the hierarchy affects those at the bottom.R. F. Kuang is obviously making a statement on war and it hits home every time.I am very excited to see where Rin’s story goes from here in The Burning God. I really think this trilogy could become one of my favourite fantasy series of all time!(POSSIBLE) SPOILER SECTION AHEADI want to go into more depth on why I don’t always like Rin. She’s always angry, and even though we can sympathise with that anger, it becomes more difficult to be understanding when she can’t – or refuses to – see the bigger picture.This is obviously because she feels lost, alone, afraid, and betrayed. Rin is mentally unhinged, on the precipice to madness, and doesn’t feel like anything matters much.Her character is complex, and the crafting of her character is a work of art – it’s incredible! It’s not that I didn’t enjoy reading the book – because I loved it and appreciated what R. F. Kuang was crafting with Rin – but that doesn’t change the fact that Rin can be a difficult point of view to follow.Nezha quickly became quite a complex character – especially with the prologue foreshadowing future events of the story, and then his final scene with Rin.His betrayal was a wonderfully symbolic knife to the back, and when I read it, it was like I could feel Rin’s agony too. I don’t believe that he is a bad person – he’s traumatised by what’s happened to him as a child and is constantly fighting for his parents’ love and attention – but I don’t think Rin or the others will ever be able to forgive him now.The final scenes set up The Burning God really well. They’ve gotten me excited to see where Rin will go now. She’s began in The Poppy War as a new recruit of the army.In The Dragon Republic she became a commander. Now she’s going to be a Warlord. I am excited to see how she will react to this new power, and what she will do with this power – she is a Goddess in her people’s eyes!Kitay will also have a larger role in this, and I love his character and his loyalty to his friends and morality, so I want to see more of him!

Spoiler alert if you haven’t read my review of The Poppy War yet (which I think you really should) this book is not for the faint of heart. It deals with some gruesome topics and themes, war, genocide, torture, racism, rape it all makes an appearance in one form or another. That being said, this book or in fact the entire series, should be on your to-read list. The second instalment in this series has confirmed where the true power lies. It’s the characters. Starting with Fang Runin ‘Rin’, she is flawed to the point of frustration. She is naïve and impulsive, quick to anger and shirks responsibility given the chance. Rin leaves the reader frustrated and exasperated, excited and elated, terrified and degraded. She leaps off the pages, becoming a larger than life character who is a real as you and me. Her actions are believable, her inner monologue familiar, her securities understandable. She breaks the confinements of the written world and materializes as someone we have met, have seen, have known in our everyday lives. Minus the obvious ability to call down an all-powerful, all-consuming god that is. And the same is true for the cast of accompanying characters that force us to see this world from different perspectives. Where the Poppy War swept us up in Rin’s conviction, the justifications of her actions, the classifications of ‘good’ and ‘bad’. The Dragon Republic will leave us reeling, wondering if we had it wrong all this time. Questioning if we might have done the same as the Empress if we had been placed in her shoes. It skews our view of who and what to trust until there is nothing left but questions. Kuang expands on the detailed world she has laid out in the Poppy War. Introducing us to new races, cultures and even utterly believable forms of magic that we could not have imagined previously. This book does not only live up to the expectations that inevitably followed The Poppy War, but it surpasses it. The Dragon Republic is a sequel that you will not be able to put down. Easily thwarting the second instalment syndrome that has plagued so many that came before.

The book picks off a few weeks or months after the end of the Poppy Wars. Rin is now working with a female pirate and smuggler Moag while working on her plans to kill the Empress in revenge. Rin is falling deeper into addiction trying to escape the voice of the God in her head, visons of Altran and her reluctant guilt over the horrific atrocity she has committed.Kitay and Venka are also struggling with their experiences in the last Poppy but find themselves dragged into civil war along with the Cike when Poppy joins forces with Nezha’s father the Dragon Warlord, Vaisra. Vaisra has a vision of bringing democracy to Nikan but he has to defeat the Empress, work with the other warlords and will do anything to achieve this including working with the foreign Hesperians.I thought that the characters' reactions to the horrific events from the last book were realistic and formed the best part of the book. A lot of books don’t touch on the consequences of people doing bad things or having bad things done to them but the author doesn’t sugar-coat this for us.Rin continues to be the angry outsider struggling to be accepted by the people around here ( both people from Nikan and the Hessperians) no matter what she does or what she gives up. Her simmering rage is described well each time she is subjected to another insult.Kitay is my favourite and I think he forms the heart of this book and provides some optimism.The action and battle scenes are vividly described, and I loved the addition of technology to this already intricate world. The political intrigue was much more complex in this book and there were some reveals that took me by surprise.The book again is divided into three parts, and I did struggle with some parts of the book. I found myself skipping quite a few pages of descriptions of discussions on religion and strategy to find out what happens. There is still angst but this time Rin’s angst is focused on Nezha’s problems and their complicated relationship.This book has lots of dark themes and is not for anyone looking for a nice and easy read.

Second books can often be the weakest of a trilogy, a placeholder for connecting an intriguing beginning to a exciting end. Book #1 was definitely intriguing, offering a mashup of fantasy and classic Chinese culture. Adopting a pretty standard orphan at the arse end of the universe gets into a Hogwarts type school fully of powerful, sniffy types, it did enough in setting out its stall to encourage me further.The Dragon Republic takes this beginning and does a pretty fair job of expanding itself into a continent defining work full of politics, intrigue, and war. There are lots of battles, lots of killing, lots of betrayals, all played out against a very believable backdrop of political, cultural, and religious change driven by historical pressures.The magical elements of the story are developed, nicely balanced between too little and too much. Whilst the one god brigade enter the fray and try to disprove the reality of the shamans, we are given more insight into the Trifecta and hints of how and why they received their powers. The conflict between the two views of the universe will hopefully provide a fertile foundation for the finale.Character development continues to be strong and believable, with a few more interesting characters arriving to keep it interesting. Rin continues to annoy me, and I’m not sure whether this is a bad thing – a character not quite cogent – or it is a good thing – a teenager with amazing powers but the immaturity of youth.I am looking forwards to see how it all pans out in book #3Recommended.Fleecy Moss, author of the Folio 55 SciFi fantasy series (writing as Nia Sinjorina), End of a Girl, Undon , 4659, and Mudborn now available on Amazon.