The Poppy War

This is SO not my kind of book, and I was able to recognize the quality of the story and the writing. It's the first of three in this series, and although I'm not sure that I want to do the next two, I can see why fantasy reviewer, Daniel Green, holds is in such high regard! The gods in their interactions with people and translators are complex and nontrivial! Death is a part of things, but even when it's expected, it's still not totally accepted. Everyone has to find his/her own comfort levels with what's going on, and even when devastation is called for, it still requires individuals' contemplation and placement of reality versus guidance versus how to deal with everything. I read it on suggestion of my younger son, and they continue to be a man's with his own depths of reality and perception (although I don't think that he has yet actually read this…) Eye opening, and it provides me with more understanding of the fantasy genre overall

Serious trigger warnings for everything.
Rating: 4 starts for part 1, 2 or 3 stars for parts 2 and 3.
Great debut, good writing, excellent narration (audible).
Feels very derivative (Mulan, Ender's Game, Harry Potter, King Killer Chronicles), but I will not let that count against the book.
In the first part I was very happy with the book. Well written, seemed to be potentially strong female in hostile (school) environment, hey, I can relate. But there were some things that irked me: the falling in love (kind of) with her bully (we really shouldn't be doing the whole "boys who hit you just do it because they like you" thing, it's 2018). The mandatory love triangle in YA (the bully and the fascinatingly goodlooking and perfect in everything commander. Ugh. Yes it wasn't a 'starry eyed' love, it was done subtly, without any kisses even (very explicitely stated in the book) but readers aren't that stupid. Well, some aren't. When someone falls kind of in love with two people, you have something that looks like a love triangle, no matter what the author says.
Yes there's romance. Maybe not simpering, hit you over your head romance, but people are attracted to each other. I call that romance. Maybe because I suck at Real Life [tm] romance?
There's of course the mentor-who-is-more-than he pretends to be (can't even call that a spoiler, it's so obvious from the very first time we meet him, it would have been more refreshing not to have that play out)
But I liked the first part. Wrote a raving first part review somewhere else.

Then came the other parts. The MC transformed into a whiney little girl. And so did her commander.
Yes yes I get where that comes from: severe PTSD. Where I liked the logic and strategy puzzles in the first part, the strategy in the second part was awful. I get that people are stupid and people in power do stupid things. But as a writer it is your job to make those stupid things logical. There was no logic.

The whole Rape of Nanking (sorry, listened to the audiobook, don't know how to write the names in the book) was gruesome. I get that YA books don't have to all sunshine and rainbow farting unicorns. Many YA books are adorably dark-ish. Writing horrible things doesn't invoke true horror. There are many better ways to convey the same horrors as the writer intended, that are a lot more effective. Now it was just an administrative ledger, summing op attrocities, that were almost (almost) laughable in their gruesomeness. It hit the wrong strings within me. There are authors out there ([a:Steven Erikson|31232|Steven Erikson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1219169436p2/31232.jpg] for example) that know how to write a scene like that and convey the real horror of it, without consorting to slasher movie tactics.
The point of a scene like that is to make the reader genuinely angry with the enemy. She failed there.
It's also a stylistic break from the first part, the breaking of the promise to the reader.
I'm not really sensitive to the many many triggers in this book, but neither the first part nor the blurb warns anyone who might be. The term "war" in YA doesn't usually cover that enough.

The third part of the book was more silly running about and more stupid decisions. It was a little bit stronger than the second part, but still not as good as the first.

This book reads as a trilogy in one book. It has all the parts of a trilogy, even the sagging middle.
Don't get me wrong, I like the book. Three stars isn't bad, but leans mostly on the fact that I liked the first part.

I will read the second book, and depending on how the series ends in the third book, I may adjust the rating of the first book.