I was promised a weird, suspenseful psychological thriller assessing crime and tackling dark themes, and I was not disappointed! I honestly co4 STARS!
I was promised a weird, suspenseful psychological thriller assessing crime and tackling dark themes, and I was not disappointed! I honestly could not put it down.
Sure, the mystery could've been handed better so that the reveal would be more satisfying, but it wasn't about the mystery, it was about chaos and faith and control and the grey logic of murderers. Though I do believe the author could have made the arguments even more convincing, and generally developed the ideas more, made the book more. Alas, it was not to be, but I still got it (probably to everyone's horror) and enjoyed it thoroughly.
You'd probably call this book sick, I'd just call it daring—in a creepy way. And creepy, my friends, is my middle name.
FRTC.
I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher, Atria Books!
Merged review:
4 STARS!
I was promised a weird, suspenseful psychological thriller assessing crime and tackling dark themes, and I was not disappointed! I honestly could not put it down.
Sure, the mystery could've been handed better so that the reveal would be more satisfying, but it wasn't about the mystery, it was about chaos and faith and control and the grey logic of murderers. Though I do believe the author could have made the arguments even more convincing, and generally developed the ideas more, made the book more. Alas, it was not to be, but I still got it (probably to everyone's horror) and enjoyed it thoroughly.
You'd probably call this book sick, I'd just call it daring—in a creepy way. And creepy, my friends, is my middle name.
FRTC.
I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher, Atria Books!...more
You asked how large my sorrow is, And I answered, like a river in spring flowing east. —Li Yu (李煜)
The Dragon Republic is a tale of many things—(4.5 ★’s)
You asked how large my sorrow is, And I answered, like a river in spring flowing east. —Li Yu (李煜)
The Dragon Republic is a tale of many things—festering anger and broken trust, learning to fight for hope and bearing failure’s inevitable rust, yes, but more than anything else, it is a tale of rankling inequity and unspeakable iniquity, of looking at the colour of one’s skin or the size of their head or the shape of their eyes, and deeming them lower, lesser, inhuman and primitive and stupid; of declaring a person chosen and evolved and another, unformed mud; of feeling righteous in reaching for what they have and carelessly trampling them beneath your shining heels.
As a Middle Easterner, I know first hand that stories like this are too common in Asia. We bear that legacy of pain on our shoulders—our backs are bent beneath their weights and our heads beaten down. Too often does the world gloss over the atrocities of the past, too often the response to history is “but that’s all in the past.”
Well, it is not.
You can tell the world to move on, you can shout it and chant it and point to the silent weapons and loud reforms promising freedom and equality, but how can one move on when we still live in an unfair world revolving around privilege, a world where the colour of your skin or the soil you were born on decide what you can and cannot have? The promises and well-intended declarations of “look to the future because what’s passed is in the past”? All they do is veil the injustice that forms the roots of this world, and by forgetting our history there is no way to shape a better future.
That is why The Poppy War trilogy matters. That is why this Chinese inspired military fantasy should be read and discussed and remembered. With The Dragon Republic, Rebecca Kuang aims to make you, dear reader, terribly uncomfortable. This is a book that is grim and dark and sucks your energy away like a black hole devouring all light. It’s not a wickedly delightful grimdark fantasy relishing rage and revenge, but one that unveils the leeches feeding and growing on your vengeance and makes you so furious yet so helpless that you are crushed underneath the weight of the world, exhausted and powerless even as you know that there is no fate, only choice.
“Happy New Year,” Kitay said. “May the gods send you blessings and good fortune.” “Health, wealth, and happiness. May your enemies rot and surrender quickly before we have to kill more of them.”
I’m not sure if I love or hate that Kuang can take glorious concepts such as ethereal worlds and gods and a revolution, and drag them down to earth so viciously that they turn into tangible, worldly, manageable affairs of everyday life. It’s rather frustratingly admirable, I admit.
But with a plot that does not fall into the passivity trap of TPW, added intrigue, improved writing, and awe-inspiringly deeper dive into intended themes like trauma and addiction, TDR managed to steal my heart in the way I’d been all but begging for, despite slightly lacking in development of some relationships (not characters, which were all stunningly layered and shaped)—but we’ll get to that in time.
If you write a book inspired by true events, you bet I, the history nerd, will dedicate an entire section to analysis of its influences and themes. Forget the characters and relationships and whatnot, this is the real reason why TPW trilogy is worthy of note. From civil war to western colonisation, Kuang unflinchingly tackles every dark nook and cranny of its Chinese influence to the ground, taming it and capturing it and putting it on disturbing display for our guarded eyes.
In my review of The Poppy War, I mentioned how I believed these books were largely inspired by the Qing dynasty which was the last imperial dynasty of China, and this sequel further strengthens my conclusion.
For one thing, the book’s Poppy Wars and their Hesperian relations are reminiscent of the Opium Wars, which were Europe’s early attempts at western colonisation of China during the reign of the Qing dynasty. Not only that, but Kuang also shows the shift in Europe’s attempts at colonisation through history, from forceful penetration in the 19th century to the economical coercion and civilising mission of the following years. The racism and greed inherent in those intervening, invasive hands seeking control of the resources of prosperous eastern lands excused by beliefs in the superiority of the White race is an infuriating and uncomfortable topic to witness for anyone of any ethnicity, and Kuang fearlessly lays its every preposterous audacity bare.
However, she has also jumbled the timeline of events and mixed nations’ and figures’ roles enough that I had to spend an insane amount of time piecing this puzzle together. To share my findings, I’ll have to give you a quick history lesson touching upon a few needed prominent moments:
Once upon a time the Qing dynasty ruled over China from 1636 to 1912. During its later years, the British who love tea bought their supply from China—but because they didn’t want to pay for it with their silver, they made up for it with cotton and opium exports from India, in which they’d just gained control. As opium addiction became an issue in the land though, the Chinese government declared a ban on all opium trade. The Great Britain was obviously bothered so, you guessed it, they showed up with their ships and guns in June of 1840 and demanded unjustified rights. The following years brought suffering and two Opium Wars for China as it was overpowered by the west, the US, France, and Russia all taking advantage of its weakness to press for favourable trade treaties and generally getting away with whatever the hell they wanted.
Eventually, people got fed up and, with various revolts, the 1911 Revolution succeeded in overthrowing the Qing. After more civil war and unrest, the Beiyang government was established as China’s central authority with Yuan Shikai being the first formal President of the Republic of China. But, seeking more of the ever-alluring power and monopolising the power of the new national government, Yuan made a short-lived attempt to make himself Emperor, died, power struggles ensued, and China ended up with two warring governments: the Communist Party of China (or CPC, based in North China) and the Nationalist Party of China (or KMT, based in South China, created by Sun Yat-sen who had previously opposed and then compromised with Yuan).
History is complicated and confusing, but there is one thing you need to know whenever it comes to the affairs of the east: that, after a point, you will always find the west peeking its head. So as China fought to unify itself, two things relevant to this historical fiction series were happening: on one hand, the foreign armies stationed in North China that had been brought in to suppress the rebellion were in danger of warring to gain power over the divided land for their “advanced nations” and on the other hand, the Soviet Union proceeded to pledge its assistance for unification of China. Thus, while everyone sought to retain both a compliant native government and equal opportunity for investment, the Soviet leadership initiated a dual policy of support for both Chinese parties, backing CPC with money and spies and aiming to reorganise KMT along the ideals of the Comintern—an international organisation founded by Russia that advocated world communism.
After years of division, Japan’s invasion of China in 1937 due to its decades-long imperialist policy to become a colonial power itself, led to a temporary unification of KMT and CPC as China fought the Second Sino-Japanese War with the help of the Soviet Union and the United States. And then there was death and tragedy and the Rape of Nanjing and WWII and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki...and you know how it goes—lives were destroyed, crimes were committed, and history was tainted and painted in black.
What happened with the Chinese Civil War after that is not in the domain of this book, so I’m leaving the story there.
As is evident, Kuang has taken events spanning across two centuries, shifted them and changed them and summarised them in a few decades: Mugen (Japan) became the main enemy in the Poppy Wars instead of Hesperia (Europe) and the Second Sino-Japanese War became the Third Poppy War, happening years earlier during the Qing dynasty instead of after its collapse. Vaisra is a Yuan Shikai (a Qing military strongman establishing the first modern army and a more efficient provincial government in North China) who did as Sun Yat-sen had done and sought foreign help, sending his people to learn from the Hesperians. The Consortium is the Comintern, observing and meddling in the precise same way. I could go on, matching every character and action with its historical counterpart because I am mad enough to have spent hours doing just that, but I will spare your poor braincells.
Despite the changes that brought the fiction to the historical, TDR ultimately maintains the main themes of its inspirations and boldly explores their implications. From fear and eradication of rumours of sorcery, to anti-Christianity and the cold treatment of western ambassadors during the Qing dynasty; from the colourism dividing North and South China with a line of prejudice and privilege, to idealist liberal movements that are in truth hypocritical and blind to the reality of the depth of injustice; from arrogant civilising missions, colonisations, and rapacity of the west, to beliefs in the superiority and chosen status of a race over the lowly and inhumane view of another, Kuang pours heart and soul into ink and parchment to develop each facet of the picture she draws.
“Do not shirk from war, child. Do not flinch from suffering. When you hear screaming, run toward it.”
And that, my friends, is why this book matters. It matters because it does not let you ignore what was and what is, still, laid in our foundations.
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Characters: Development & Relationships
If you strip away the powerful themes and exquisite world, you will be left with the characters—and they are just as faceted as the aforementioned aspects of the book.
“When you have the power that you do, your life is not your own.”
✿ Rin: It’s quite rare to read healing journeys gone wrong, weaving the ways characters slip instead of succeed in their battle with mental illness, so I appreciate how Kuang delves into Rin’s mentality, her excuses behind addiction, and her immediate flight when encountering grief and guilt. With Rin’s internal struggles, we soberingly witness the philosophy of violence and watch as its haunting consequences unfold.
But in all honesty, even as I love Rin’s lethal, unapologetic quickness and zero tolerance, she’s too much of a follower—needing to be disciplined, craving her abusers, picking paths rather than carving her own—to capture my heart yet. I do love that her incompetence is acknowledged, though; something that has me very hopeful for the path the story seems to be taking.
✿ Nezha: This idealistic, clueless, privileged, haunted, idiotically loyal baby boy has me so conflicted I want to simultaneously hug him adoringly and pummel him angrily. It’s a pity that his character and his dynamic with Rin did not get the time and attention they deserved, because they could’ve been my new obsession. But sadly, this relationship ended up being as lackingly developed as Rin and Altan in TPW.
Considering how impressively Kuang’s writing has improved though, with Altan’s promised theme of destructive tendencies now finally being shown and thoroughly written, I cannot wait to see Kuang grow even more and steal my breath with Rinezha as well as Nezha himself.
✿ Kitay: You know that character who walks through trauma and emerges as a bitter bastard on the other side? Yes, that one, the one I, however disturbingly, love—that is my Kitay going from an uptight, moral cinnamon roll to a viciously practical scholar slaying me with his sass. It was a little sad to see his righteousness come bite him in the arse, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was also satisfying; what can I say, I’m evil.
✿ The Cike: Last but not least, tiny, innocent, brilliant, and dangerous Ramsa, sarcastic, irreverent, and thrill-seeking Baji, hypocritical, tragic Chaghan, and all of the Cike’s forced companionship and solid comradeship left a mark on my heart. They might not be warm, they might not be friendly, they might constantly hit one another, never pulling punches...but to me, they are a testament to the unlikely friends, no allies, that one can stumble upon in times of pain and crisis when all you have is one more broken soul who might hate you for the mirror you are of their own doomed predicament, but they would have your back if you have theirs because, really, you’re all the other’s got.
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CW ➾ racism, colourism, colonisation, abuse, misogyny, PTSD, grief, substance use and addiction, self-harm, nonconsensual human experimentations and medical examinations, torture, rape, burning, genocide, mutilation, gore and violence
Books in series: ➴ The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1) ★★★★☆ ➴ The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War, #2) ★★★★✯ ➴ The Burning God (The Poppy War, #3) ★★★★★...more
I hate it so much I can’t stop thinking about it. I hate it enough to wanna make 100 accounts to rate it one star over & over again.
BI hate this book.
I hate it so much I can’t stop thinking about it. I hate it enough to wanna make 100 accounts to rate it one star over & over again.
But I won’t, not because that’s immoral but because there can’t be hate unless there is love. There can’t be loss unless there is need. There can’t be hurt unless there is care.
“I hate you,” I say, the words coming out like a caress. I say it again, over and over. A litany. An enchantment. A ward against what I really feel.
So really, it’s my own damn fault. I all but handed Holly Black a gilded dagger, turned my back, and begged her to please please stab me right in the feels, going so far as to give her directions to the place just south of my hopes and slightly north of my dreams.
I am Jude and this book is my Wicked King.
And there is no better way, absolutely none, to convey how it feels to read its every page, every brush of ink, every curve and crease, than to quote the book itself: It has all the sinister pleasure of sneaking out of the house, all the revolting satisfaction of stealing. It reminds me of the moment before I slammed a blade through my hand, amazed at my own capacity for self-betrayal. (Please do excuse me for stealing lines—I do so because I am an inadequate piece of human soul and incapable of competing with the Faerie Queen who wrote this pure trove of gems).
“Power is much easier to acquire than it is to hold on to.”
I have said it before, and I’ll say it again: People don’t paint this series as it truly is. The Folk of the Air is not a light, romantic fairytale, however addictive; it’s a dark and deadly one—less a page-turner and more a temptress. It’s about tricks and snares, games and intrigue and pain and, above all else, power. Infectious, greedy, alluring power.
And that, all of that, weaves itself through every nook, around every thread of the books. It hugs Jude’s curves and flies from her lips, slides along Cardan’s tail and between his clever clasp. It wraps its hungry grasp around the characters, bathing, entombing, suffocating. And it, quite gloriously, circles the dynamics and bonds, twisting and blurring the lines of love and hate, want and fear, until it is one with its every angle, dip, and chip. I guess it makes sense some would mistake one for the other.
Isak Danielson’s song Power (which you can find on my book playlist) is The Wicked King incarnate and why oh why didn’t I listen when people told me NOT to finish it before an exam and went ahead to do just that? Sigh, I’m a fool, yes, but a fool for Jude and Cardan. And that never ceases to be an honour.
“Things are always super dramatic around here,” Vivi tells Heather. “Epic. Everyone acts as though they just stepped out of a murder ballad.”
As I called this book a pure trove of gems, I will proceed to refer to the treasures as the four most precious gemstones:
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Black Diamond: Jude Duarte
“Once upon a time, there was a human girl stolen away by faeries, and because of that, she swore to destroy them.”
I will fight every single person who dares call my Jude annoying or unbearable and anything else in the thesaurus for those adjectives. She is the definition of a brilliant badass queen and I am willing to rip throats to prove it. Metaphorically, of course.
In The Cruel Prince she evolved from the girl who wanted to impress and fit in and fight for honour, to a ruthless, power-hungry, scheming star, and in this sequel her shine multiplies a thousandfold; so I suggest you all shield your eyes before you go blind from her magnificence. Exploring her hatred of vulnerability, her need for control, and her insistence on relentlessly pushing and pushing herself both physically and mentally to the brink of collapse until she’s achieved perfection and utter independence, made me relate to her on a level that bordered on discomfort, if comfort really had any meaning (at least to me) and I wasn’t such a self-absorbed bastard.
The sheer will. That, right there, is my most adored trait in human or faerie, reality or fiction.
“You’re unwinding yourself like a spool. What happens when there’s no more thread?” “Then I spin more.”
Anger or fear? Fear or anger? Jude would argue anger (unsurprisingly, that is, her being a furious hurricane and all) and I happen to agree. Both are overwhelming emotions that can drown and paralyse and turn one into a fool, while both can also motivate and embolden and turn one into a champion. However, there is a certain strand of arrogance interwoven with amger that fear happens to lack. And, you all know me, I would pick anger over fear any day.
So I can do nothing less than shout my love for her from the rooftops, no mountains, as Jude takes the hurt and weakness the Folk carved into her flesh and bone, adds it to the stew of her desire to be magic like them mixed with her obsessive knowledge of their rules and their ways and the music of their strings as they are pulled and plucked, and sprinkles it with a formidable amount of pleasure from the power and the dance and determination to learn and excel, watching it all bubble and burn. She is certainly my favourite cook, because she is better at being worse than them. Never, ever underestimate my little murderer’s strength, her skill at strategy, and her capacity for cruelty.
Lastly, I want to raise a glass to the question Holly raises with this book: Is it good, or bad, for a ruler to contain those cutting, cunning impulses? Answer that as you will.
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Cat’s Eye Emerald: Cardan Greenbriar
“Have you never heard that virtue is its own reward?” Cardan says pleasantly. “That’s because there’s no other reward in it.”
Ahhhh, I am in love with this wicked king (while wanting to strangle him to death and back, ofc) and I’m not even sorry.
I stand by my point in my review of The Cruel Prince that his most important difference from most wicked charming boys (or girls) in books, is his absolute lack of ambition. Hell, that’s also the main difference between him and Jude. This small (perhaps inconsequential to most fans) detail is so ridiculously highlighted for me because it makes him endearing and unique and helplessly adorable, adding to his irresistible charm as he languishes on life, and why am I swooning right now ugh.
The Wicked King is undoubtedly the best installment in this trilogy and one of the reasons for that is Cardan’s beautiful, heart-stopping growth as a character. He goes from a person commited to, as Jude would put it, “being a layabout who does none of the real work of governance,” to finding himself, his resolve, mettle, fight—whatever you want to call it—because of how his feeling of powerlessness and fear trickle away, drip by drip, as he no longer has someone to inflame (Jude excluded). And, mostly, because of Jude pushing him unwittingly.
He learns to own it.
“The three of you have one solution to every problem. Murder. No key fits every lock.” Cardan gives us all a stern look, holding up a long-fingered hand with my stolen ruby ring still on one finger. “Someone tries to betray the High King, murder. Someone gives you a harsh look, murder. Someone disrespects you, murder. Someone ruins your laundry, murder.”
I could go on for two more paragraphs about why he seems to “have a singular taste for women who threaten” him and why and how a certain type of power dynamic appeals to our dear twisted fearie as it, honestly, does to most of the messed up characters in this series, but I won’t bore you anymore with my psychological talk. I will just go ahead and carve a Cardan-shaped chamber deep in my cold, dark heart to trap this clever, cutting, shameless, straightforward yet playful boy and protect him at all costs.
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Burmese Ruby: The Jurdan Ship
“If you’re the sickness, I suppose you can’t also be the cure.”
I mean whoever wasn’t already abroad this ship should be careful because I might kindly push them overboard for being late to the party (let’s ignore the fact that I was also late to the general party shh). If book one was them warming up for the match, book two is them sparring at full swing and I am here for it. And “what is sparring but a game of strategy, played at speed?” So just as he is wary of her, bracing for her next blow while enjoying the game and trusting her completely, he is also going to land blows. Really, it’s only fair.
“I have heard that for mortals, the feeling of falling in love is very like the feeling of fear. Your heart beats fast. Your senses are heightened. You grow light-headed, maybe even dizzy.”
I think my second favourite aspect of their relationship (after the games and sparring match) is how their need and attraction and glimpse of a kindred spirit morphs into denial and fury and fiery hatred as they run away from the feeling they despise lacing through their love, all while being helpless to do so. Running at full speed on the tilted ground drenched with a rain of pain and desire, Cardan has already slipped. It’s Jude’s turn to do so.
“Kiss me again,” he says, drunk and foolish. “Kiss me until I am sick of it.”
Now, I’m going to make a confession. I was as stupefyingly petrified of their dynamic shifting as Jude was. Every step he took beyond her control, every claim he made to his own self, every fistful of power he dug up, I found myself screaming no no just as much as I cheered his growth. Because I understand her fear of being out of control and powerless, and do not want him to hold more power than Jude. And that fear is idiotic and unfair, because the fact that one’s power should come out of another’s powerlessness needs to give everyone pause.
He has capered while she schemed, it’s time for them to learn to be equals, with mutual trust even in their game of chess, having faith in the fact that their opponent and partner will never land a killing blow.
“For a moment,” he says, “I wondered if it wasn’t you shooting bolts at me.” I make a face at him. “And what made you decide it wasn’t?” He grins up at me. “They missed.”
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Violet Sapphire: Rest of the Rabble
“Like the ant in the fable who labors in the dirt while the grasshopper sings the summer away.” “And has nothing left for winter,” I say. “I need for nothing,” he says, shaking his head, mock-mournful. “I am the Corn King, after all, to be sacrificed so little Oak can take my place in the spring.”
✧ Storytelling: I might’ve read only one trilogy by Holly Black, but I can safely say she is one true Weaver; taking the tale by the throat, dunking it in an ocean of vocabulary and punctuations, and threading the water and words into whorls of magic and enchantment. Thank you, Holly, for weaving waves of wailing tales for us.
✧ Worldbuilding: No words can capture and frame my love for this mystical, fairytaleish land of exotic, quiet allure, so I’m not even gonna try.
“I’m still your father.” “You’re my father’s murderer,” I blurt out. “I can be both,” Madoc says, smiling, showing those teeth.
✧ Madoc: I could not tear my gaze away from this messed up father-daughter relationship. He, the monster who took everything from Jude, also gave her a new life, pushed her to her fullest potential (even while underestimating her), encouraged her fire (even while beating her down), was all is she had. And I lived for how thoroughly this facet of this dark tapestry, this theme of moving past and beyond the power of the person who raised you, burns throughout the book. P.S. Pain makes you strong? Sith much?
“Your ridiculous family might be surprised to find that not everything is solved by murder,” Locke calls after me. “We would be surprised to find that,” I call back.
✧ Taryn the Betrayer: I argued in my review of The Lost Sisters that Taryn likes the games and adventure and power play and is fierce enough to claim her own tale (while being hypocritical enough to deny it). And she does. But doesn’t mean she is not weak, because she is that, too. She escapes confrontation and discomfort like a sunflower constantly turning towards the sun to flee the darkness—and I’ve never much liked sunflowers. This adaptability is exactly what fascinates Locke, and this weakness is just what takes apart the trust between these two lost sisters.
✧ Locke the F***ing Fox: I know everyone hates and wants to kill this guy, but I can’t resist bringing him back to life after choking him for more of his playful, dangerous-but-fun fox games of backstabbing delight. *sheepish smile*
“Revenge is sweet, but ice cream is sweeter.”
✧ Vivi the Humanlover: A moment’s appreciation for mt defiant yet chill, loving yet selfish knight-at-heart.
✧ Fala the Fool: Putting him here because NO ONE SEEMS TO CARE FOR THIS GEM WHY. K I’mma truly shut up now bye.
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