Review: The Poppy War

Image Source: Harper Voyager

Set in twentieth-century China, The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang is a dark, fantastical read sure to enthrall the reader.

The novel follows the story of Rin, a slave girl who’s opium-dealing owners use to distribute their contraband. Being an orphan of war, her fate was seemingly sealed when her owners arranged for her to be married off to an old, wealthy, widower as part of a transaction. To escape her fate, Rin decided to take the Keiju — an empire-wide exam meant to determine the most talented youth to study at the Academies. Against all odds, Rin aces the test and gets accepted to Sinegard, the most prestigious military academy in the empire. Once accepted, she believes the hardest part to be over, but being a dark-skinned, peasant war-orphan in the midst of youth who were destined for prestige will not be easy. Add to the mix her unknown ability of shamanism, and life seems to be taking interesting twists for Rin.

Although Kuang’s debut novel is set in fiction, the elements of Chinese history are ever present, soaked in the fantasy and darkness of the plot. Kuang does a wonderful job in writing about the struggles of color, poverty, and gender all while keeping to the plot and weaving it all together into a majestic tapestry of fictive prowess. For readers who want a fantastical story rooted in historical grounds, The Poppy War is the one.