The Burning God: An Epic Fantasy of War, Magic, and Mythology in a High-Conflict World from Bestselling Author R. F. Kuang (The Poppy War, 3)

There are books that entertain you... and then there are books that leave you sitting in silence after the final page. The Burning God did exactly that. This series has been an emotional journey, but this final installment was on another level. It was beautifully brutal. Every victory came with a cost, every decision carried impossible consequences, and the emotional weight never let up. R.F. Kuang doesn't shy away from the horrors of war, power, ambition, and revenge. The characters are forced to make choices that are heartbreaking, and even when I understood why they made them, it didn't make those moments any easier to read. I felt every triumph, every loss, and every sacrifice right alongside them. What I appreciate most about this series is that it never takes the easy path. It challenges you, surprises you, and refuses to offer simple answers. The ending felt true to the story that had been building from the very first book, and I know these characters will stay with me for a long time. If you're looking for a fantasy filled with complex characters, unforgettable battles, political intrigue, and emotional depth, The Poppy War Trilogy is absolutely worth the journey. Just be prepared because this story doesn't pull a single punch.

The Burning God was a powerful and intense conclusion to The Poppy War trilogy. At the beginning, I still had a lot of empathy for Rin. She had lost so much and carried the weight of an entire nation on her shoulders. But as the story went on, I started to hate the person she was becoming. Her choices grew darker, her judgment clouded by power and vengeance. By the end, I wasn’t rooting for her anymore, and honestly, the final scene felt justified. It was harsh, but it made sense. The worldbuilding was rich and colorful, full of culture, history, and war strategy. Kuang really knows how to create a vivid, brutal world. But at the same time, I think she tried to do too much with this book. There were so many subplots and side characters that the story felt overstuffed and dragged out. In my opinion, the same message and emotional impact could’ve been delivered in a book half the size. Overall, while I respect the ambition, The Burning God left me feeling drained and conflicted; not because it was bad, but because it went so far that even the main character became hard to support.

Wow. I sob cried at the end of the book...and I can't stop crying every time I think about it. This story/series is extremely traumatizing but at the same time absolutely amazing. I could not stop thinking about it anytime I put it down and this story will forever be seared into my heart. If you loved the first two books you will love the third entry...all mysteries are revealed to us and our characters get the conclusion that they need. It's so hard to describe without spoilers...so just DO IT! Read it! So worth it!! *SPOILERS BECAUSE I NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS!* As soon as Rin started marching towards Arlong and is taking back Republic conquered cities we can see the cracks forming in her. It's been coming all along but now we start getting worried that Rin is not going to be able to keep the Phoenix at bay and is making decisions based on her rage/vengeance and not for the good of her people that she's been fighting for all along. I died a little inside when Venka was accused of being a traitor and then was killed a moment later defending Rin - Rin how could you?! And then when she wants to keep going and start a war with the Hesperians after seeing the absolute devastation her country is in...I knew Rin was gone. It was cemented when she thinks Kitay has turned against her and lies to him about the compromise/surrender to the Hesperians. And then I completely turned to dust when she was about to bring down the entire world and she was going to break and kill Kitay. I was so relieved when she came to her senses and stopped hurting Kitay and chose to self sacrifice herself because she knows she will never stop. Of course this means Kitay dies too leaving poor Nezha to pick up the broken pieces of the country to fix. AND THEN the author has to include a short story at the end through Nezha's POV during certain key points throughout the series and we find out that he truly loved Rin, he did not ever want power, he just wanted to be at peace....but now he can never have any of those things. IM DEAD, DEAD AND GONE, RF KUANG WHY!????? I loved every moment but I will never get over this. Thanks for that!

update: lowered my review. Much of my thoughts remain the same; for me I felt compelled to lower it because I originally was giving it 4 stars more out of obligation to the characters that I loved rather than being honest about my frustrations and it’s shortcomings. - Phew! How do I even begin to order my thoughts? R.F. Kuang, you have truly destroyed all of our peace of mind (in the best way possible) with these series and characters, and I thank you tremendously for it. For now, I'm rating TBG 4 stars out of my love and appreciation for the characters and certain arcs that were seen through in this finale. However, in total honesty, I may end up bumping the review down, as I struggled a bit with some of the characterizations/ pacing of TBG. Firstly, I have said this before and must say it again, while I understand and can appreciate that Rin is not a trustworthy or objective narrator, I found the continued character assasination and villification of Altan to be gratuitious and completley unnessecary. We ended The Dragon Republic with Rin beginning to believe and come into her own power, and yet a lot of her internal monolouge and perspective in the first half of The Burning God felt lifted word for word from her in the first and second books. So to that end, it just felt like Rin's never ending obsession with and fear of Altan was tiring and frustrating, especially as we as the reader understand the person she imagines and characterizes isn't actually who he was. Going off of that, while I actually was not outraged by the ending and felt it made perfect sense, I did struggle personally with Rin's descent into power hungry madness and tunnel vision regarding violence and waging wars. This is honestly a compliment to R.F. Kuang, as she characterized it and Rin's loss of sense of reality so sickeningly well. The last comment I'll make is that as a finale, TBG felt a little bit like it bit off more than it could chew. You have the Southern Coalition, the Hesperians, the Trifecta plotline, all overlapping and yet at the same time, none feel focused enough on. I LOVED seeing Daji and Jiang banter and was a bit frustrated at how quickly- and vaguely-that storyline was resolved. I had so many more questions! I also think that the characters themselves suffered due to how much goes on in the book in terms of plotlines. Venka's arc and ending felt really unsatisfactory to me, and at times it seemed as though Kitay would appear to chastise Rin's nature and then be gone again. All in all, the ending was beautifully- and PAINFULLY- crafted. R.F. Kuang has done an absolutely stellar job at writing a series that forces questions about human nature, about the true cost of war, and the characters of leaders; who they believe themselves to be, and who they are. Historically, culturally, this series is important. Am a better, more critically thinking person for having read it!

This book, the third of the trilogy, was horrifying and beautiful at the same time. I couldn’t put it down. I broke both arms off of my glasses reading in bed until I fell asleep. It was worth the damage to my glasses and my soul. And the ending…wow, just wow! If you’ll excuse me, I have to go order new glasses.

This is a compelling trilogy -- I had to finish the first, immediately start the second and then waited impatiently for the third. For making me feel that, it's an overall four stars. A lot of fantasy takes so long to start and present the characters, the stakes -- and then has a world building that either feels déjà vu or too full of absurd details (*cough* sprens). This one, to me, had enough background of the main character at first and then right away moved her into a school where she met the other main characters. Some more characters crop up as the books go, but the main ensemble is there, pretty soon into the first book. And they are clear-cut characters, too, while still being believable and full fleshed. The way she incorporated the legends and history of China was also interesting, if a little heavy-handed at times. However, in this third book, the flaws that bothered me only seemed to increase. It felt as if there was no proper planning, and the book often veered chaotically from one side to the other -- just like Rin's war. One might argue that this is on purpose, but not really. Not from a story-telling point of view. You can absolutely give the impression of chaos in a war without it reflecting on the story. Another reviewer has pointed it out, but the problem seemed to be a lack of planning, or a lack of awareness of what to do with the elements that the writer had built up until now. SPOILERS The historical elements here become TOO heavy handed, to the point of seeming preachy -- especially against "Hesperia" (i.e., the West). Although one can well believe that traditional warriors would feel that way about mechanized war, and we are mostly seeing this through the almost hysterical POV of Rin, the caricature of the Hesperians gets tedious after a while. The Trifecta appears after much expectation only to go out with a whimper. Truly in a way that was almost comical. The shaman powers also get controlled or manipulated by Hesperia through methods that were a little laughable. One practically needed the mad scientist with the fake-looking, wobbly dashboard, screaming, "DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL!" or something equally 1950s. Or before. The fact is that the story gets lost amid so many campaigns and trudging through mud and corpses and then sudden epic fights which become repetitive -- and stop causing emotion. We see two or three duels between Nezha and Rin that are pretty much the same thing. Maybe even four. The big dangers like the Trifecta and the Dragon appear and recede after such fireworks. Dirigibles and other war weapons come and go and come again. What I mean is that the stakes don't go UP. They waddle. The story goes sideways with no rising emotion and dawdles in the wrong places. Then climaxes are produced through firework displays, but they have ceased to excite. It is, in fact, very much like the third act in a lot of superhero movies. Bam. Bam. Boom. Bam. There is an IDEA behind all this that's good. Rin's realization that the Trifecta is dangerous; her creation of more shamans to fight against Hesperia's machines; her duel against Nezha and his reasons; the dawning understanding that she has bit more than she can chew and she cannot govern -- she is a warrior, not an administrator. She knows no compromise. And then her final decision, which could be seen as a sort of redemption -- and is a sacrifice. The problem is, all that happens there in this messy ending has been done before in this very book. She is thinking things she has thought before. Epiphanies are presented and then come again and again. And by the time the final one comes, it's only too obvious because it's been hinted at over and over again. Which is to say: This was an original story, it had compelling characters and situations -- but the messiness of the execution and the heavy-handedness of the epiphanies and messages squandered away the potential of the trilogy. I'm still happy to have read it. I'm curious to see what Kuang does next. But she would totally benefit from tighter outlining and more judicious editing, which might come with experience.

***5 Stars*** Overall, So, I finished the first two books in this series about 3 months ago and instead of going right into the final book I decided I needed a break from this world. Not because the books aren’t good. They are just heavy and dark and sad and tense and after reading 1000+ pages of that I needed to read some lighter material. Now that I have picked this final book up and read it, I can say with out a doubt it was a fantastic, thrilling, dark, sad, tense finale. The book ended the only way that it could and while I am broken hearted everything leading up to it and the steady decline of Rin as the world around her is falling apart I am very content with the way that it ended. Cover, I have the white hardcover edition and it is striking in its starkness with Rin on the cover. Recommendation, If you have made it this far in the Poppy War Trilogy then I obviously I recommend reading this final book. If you are just stumbling on to this book series, know that it is historical fiction/fantasy with very dark material, please check your trigger warnings before picking this series up. It can be very graphic at times. I do think anyone who loves fantasy with a lot of war/battles/battle planning you should consider picking this book up.

This will be a review of The Burning God and the trilogy overall... The trilogy overall is 5 stars because I've never read anything like it before. It is a military fantasy with very dark, very cinematic moments that are worthy of being on the big screen. The first book depicts Rin as already a hard worker and a determined young girl of age 14-15 years. She gets into the toughest military school by bribing her tutor to teach her and scoring high on the exam; there, she encounters bullying for her dark skin and other heartaches and backaches too. This sets the stage for her mentality later on because it shifts a bit into darker terrains. The Dragon Republic(Book 2) takes us deeper into the Dragon region and there is more politics involved, and more importantly, Rin learns more about the powerful Trifecta. It is during this point that I realize Rin, Nezha, Venka, and my favorite- Kitay, are having to grow up really fast. The third Poppy War literally happened as they were studying in school-- so as the reader, I offer grace to their errors because I must remember they are so young. But by the final book, I am worried for Rin...and her friends. In The Burning God(Book 3) Rin becomes something broken. She is fragmented mentally, and spiritually she is all over the place. Her decisions seems to come from more of the Phoenix inside her rather than her. Nezha(her former bully and on again off again foe/friend) is even more complex. I truly love how no one is the innocent here, but also are people you care deeply for. While reading, I realized a few things about Rin: -She's impulsive -Magnificent -Smart -Deadly -Monstrous -Dedicated All of this, for her people. Yeah, there were times in the book I wanted to put my fist through the page. Rin is constantly betrayed- also, there were several pages where it was so bleak and hopeless, I wanted everyone put out of their misery. There seemed to be NO silver lining in the plot, or there were false ones. The saving grace (and why the book earns five stars) is the final cataclysmic chapters and bonus short story at the end called, "Drowning Faith"- It is wonderful, a tear jerker and this trilogy will live in my heart forever. I hope R.F. Kuang continues to write more books. I just purchased Babel, also written by her.

This poppy war series was worth reading

llegó en perfecto estado y muy rápido (

This is an incredibly well-written book! It's terrifying at times, and sometimes even hard to read because of the things that happen in it, but it's absolutely worth it.

Amazing book. Incredibly well written.

Como toda la saga, maravilloso. Es cierto que este se hizo un poco más largo, con escenas que parecía que no llegaban a ser nada- avanzabas y pensaba ¿A dónde hemos llegado con esto? Pero no puedo más que ponerle 5 estrellas porque la saga para mí realmente ha sido fascinante. Una de las mejores sagas que he leído, una de las mejores escritoras que he leído nunca.