Title: The Dragon Republic (The Poppy Wars #2)
Author: R.K. Kuang
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Harper Collins Publishers
Publication Date: 2019
Page count: 656
Rating:

The Poppy Wars trilogy is one of the darkest, most intense fantasy series that I’m currently reading. The content is incredibly heavy and there are moments where it feels unrelentingly bleak, but as is the case in everything I’ve read by R.F. Kuang, the themes and connections of real historical significance are important, only seeming more so by the weight of Kuang’s storytelling.

Where The Poppy War started with a touch more levity, following Rin’s schooling and the relationships and conflicts that came before moving into military action, The Dragon Republic just dove head-first into tragic territory. There were so many plot aspects to move forward, so much character development, and so many political maneuvers needed to unfold that The Dragon Republic felt a bit slow, but the story itself and the characters within were consistently compelling.

I typically don’t read books that are quite as dark as this trilogy has turned out to be, but I’m drawn to everything that Kuang writes. The characters she creates are so complex and Rin is the ultimate antihero, she’s someone you’re constantly rooting for and then cringing away from. The story is so intricate and well-woven that you can’t turn away and, perhaps most significantly, her ability to weave in themes like racism and imperialism, war and devastation, and all the ways that those aspects impact our ability to be human and see others as human as well, are heart-wrenching. The only thing that kept this book from a solid 5 stars for me was just the cadence, which felt a bit slow, but I still absolutely loved this book and can’t wait to finish the series in April.

Fair warning: spoilers ahead for anyone who hasn’t read this or the other books in this series.

Book Review: The Dragon Republic by R.F. Kuang

The Dragon Republic is the second book in The Poppy Wars trilogy and begins with Rin struggling desperately with her severe opium addiction. She’s seen and experienced more trauma than most people would in several lifetimes, and is personally responsible for destroying an entire country. Layer in the fact that she finds her God, the Phoenix, impossible to control and that she can’t get a handle on her rage or emotions and, understandably, she’s an unmitigated wreck.

Rin and the Cike have been covertly attempting to elicit the support they need to kill the Empress, whom they hold personally responsible for Altan’s death when the Dragon Warlord, Yin Vaisra, captures them. Vaisra convinces Rin that they’re working towards the same goal and that once the Empress is disposed of, he intends to implement a democratic system across the Nikan empire. With no other allies or options, Rin finds herself siding with Vaisra and swearing the Cike into his services as they move toward civil war with the other Nikaran provinces.

Vaisra’s first order for Rin is to get sober, so she spends several weeks in a gruelling withdrawal, supported by Nehza (Vaisra’s son and Rin’s friend from Sinegard) and the rest of the Cike. As she successfully weans off the opium, she works more one-on-one with Vaisra and begins to respect his authority and crave his approval. He treats Rin as though she is his personal weapon and even though her sobriety is only tentative and new, he throws her into conflict immediately with the Empress. The Empress quickly overpowers Rin and while she manages to escape, it isn’t before the Empress imprints a seal on Rin that prevents her from accessing her God.

As the war drags on, Rin, Kitay and the Cike are all forced into brutal, aggressive invasions. While Rin is initially content with her allegiance with the Dragon Warlord and the other southern Warlords with whom he has found support, she is less at ease with the contingent of Hesperians that follow their actions. The Hesperians are withholding support until the Nikara can demonstrate that they can exercise responsible and civilized leadership, but as a part of their ongoing observations, Vaisra allows them to experiment on and observe Rin. While these experiments begin somewhat harmlessly, they quickly get more vicious and humiliating. It’s clear that the Hesparians regard the Nikara as savages who are plagued by “chaos”, or the presence of the Gods, and they see it as their mission to eradicate this chaos from the continent and its people. They use the experiments with her to attempt to provoke the chaos or the power of her God, but the seal prevents it from working. As they get increasingly frustrated, Rin begins to see cracks in their motivations, and her suspicions about their true involvement in the war begin to peak.

From here, the whole of the empire is dragged into the civil war and the battles reach a crescendo that has devastating consequences for all involved, and particularly for Rin and the Cike. Rin will have to choose who she wishes to remain loyal to, and her choice will determine whether or not she manages to save her own life.

Kuang’s writing is epic in so many ways. The depth and brutality of the military aspects of this book are jarring and intense, and while some parts felt long, it was a necessary build to the plot that allowed the characters to develop authentically and created space for aspects of the long-term narrative to fall into place. There’s so much happening and so many aspects to these books that you feel like you’re observing a piece of history, even if that history is fictional. That said, the parallels to real-world events are as evident as they are crushing. The wide-sweeping impacts of imperialism, the disgusting levels of racism, particularly between nations that perceive themselves as more “developed” and superior to those that are still developing, the complete annihilation of culture and disregard for centuries of history and growth. It’s all so bleak and also so impactful at the same time, I found myself reflecting often about the brutality of it all.

The characters, in my opinion, are also perfect complements to this dense, intense plot. Rin is the ultimate antihero, someone you’re cheering for one second and then repulsed by the next. She’s a by-product of her environment, having been shaped by the racism, classism, and military training she’s received, and while you cringe at her decisions and actions, you also see very clearly how she arrived there. She’s so often heartbreaking, and to see her betrayed and broken by so many people who are supposed to support her hurts every time.

I was glad to see Kitay return to this novel with a bigger role. I loved that he became Rin’s anchor because, to me, he is in so many ways her opposite. While Rin is impulsive and ruled by her emotions, Kitay is calculated and thoughtful, always learning and coming to an educated conclusion. He’s not exactly altruistic, and he often arrives at the same brutal conclusions as those around him, but I appreciated that his endorsements were only made after all angles were examined. He provided a voice of reason in scenes that were otherwise ruled by ego, power plays, and otherwise unqualified or biased men.

I don’t typically read books that are as dark as the ones in this series, but I’m just so drawn to Kuang’s ability to tell an incredible story. Her world-building is intelligent and complex, her writing brings out the themes and characters in her narrative gorgeously, and the stories themselves are smart and devastating. I thought The Dragon Republic was a fantastic second book, and I can’t wait to finish out this trilogy in April.