This review will not contain any spoilers for the Dragon Republic. However, being a sequel, it may contain some soft spoilers for The Poppy War.

If you read my original review of The Poppy War, you know that I had some major mixed feelings about it. I felt the writing was mixed, and it did not feel like a cohesive unit. There was a chapter late in the book that read like a history book, the first section was teenage institution stuff, the second half being more serious war crime stuff, and I really struggled with all the tonal shifts. Most importantly for me, I really struggled with the characters. I do not need to like a character to be able to enjoy a book. In fact, challenging characters are often really fun to read. However, I do want depth and exploration of the characters, and if a character is grey or extremely unlikeable, I want to know why - what is their past, their motivations, what is driving all of this? I felt all of our characters, but especially Rin, were very one note and lacking any real depth of exploration, especially when it came to Rin's motives. She seemed like a one note sociopath for pretty much the entire book (remember when she said in tactics she was willing to ruin the ecology of an entire section of the empire and accept the death of innocent civilians to win one battle?). Because of all of this, I had been debating moving on with the series, but ultimately felt compelled to challenge myself. As I mentioned in a recent post, I have been considering whether I am challenging myself with my reading enough of late, so I decided it was time to head back into Kuang's world and see how it went.

Within the first few chapters of the Dragon Republic, I felt like we got more character development and more insight into our characters' motivations and inner thoughts than in the entire first book. We see here that Rin is not really a sociopath, but someone in their late teens who is struggling with leadership, anger, drug addiction, and the mental struggles of dealing with their life choices. She's no longer just sociopathic rage - she's a complex character who has been thrust into a terrible position since a young age, and things just seem to keep getting worse. Hers is a tragic story, and adds layers of complexity to her character. All of our characters similarly were so much better explored, and this made for much more compelling reading.

The story of the Dragon Republic was also excellent, and the writing was much more cohesive. While there were still some things that rubbed me the wrong way, namely Kuang's proclivity to add the phrase "he/she said" after almost every bit of dialogue, her writing was definitely a big step up in this one, and you can see the growth and maturation she experienced in between these two books. The book is more cohesive, and the tonal shifts much less dramatic. The main plot moves along at a great clip, with plenty of twists and turns along the way. We learn so much more about the world, and we get some truly emotional moments. I thought the momentum of the plot was excellent, and we get a great ending that leads us right into the third and final book in the trilogy.

So let me address Rin for a minute here. Rin still is agonizingly frustrating at points. I have heard some feedback that if you did not like Rin in book one, you won't like her in the rest of the series and, as such, you shouldn't keep reading. I've also heard some people who say they love Rin and feel that all of her actions have been right and justifiable, chalking it all up to a good story of female rage. To both of those groups I would say, I think you may be missing the point. I do not believe that Rin is a character that is meant to be loved or even liked - she's a character to be understood. She has clearly made some terrible mistakes and made some awful decisions. She has committed atrocities that she will need to process for the rest of her life. Not every decision has been justifiable. But with the added exploration of her character, more insight into her state of mind and her thought process, Rin has become much more compelling, and her issues are much more understandable and part of a more complex character. Rin's is a story about the horrors of war and trauma, and the decisions and reactions people have in bad times.

Overall, I am really glad that I decided to push myself a bit and listen to this one, because it ultimately was a much better experience, and has left me excited to see how it finishes out. I still don't think The Poppy War will be an all time favorite of mine, and I still have my issues with it, but overall this was a big step up and I think I will get a lot out of reading this series. If you struggled with the Poppy War like I did, I would encourage you to give The Dragon Republic a try. If you don't enjoy this one, of course it's probably time to stop. But if you are open to it, you may find a much better developed world and story with much more interesting character exploration.

If you want more in depth insight into what I'm reading, consider joining as a paid member, where you get access to my weekly reading update videos where I talk about books like this in real time as I read them!