Name: The Dragon Republic
ISBN: 9780062662637

The Dragon Republic

Chloe Heisserer

She found an odd pleasure in that. Her body knew what to do, which meant she could turn her mind off.

Marz 

This book ruined my life, if Nezha was a real person I would find him and pummel him to death with my bare fists and then piss on his corpse. /srs

Katelyn B

4.5🌟 so many twists turns and betrayals

made me want to bang my head against a wall multiple times. also a candidate as my thirteenth reason because What The Fuck

Betty

alexandra

THIS IS A MESS I’M A MESS EVERYTHING IS A MESS

Teeeeeesha

Rin is now the commander of cike and she's broken. The country needs her now more than ever but can she pull Herself together to see through to Vaisra and Nezha's visions or will she be betrayed?

The Dragon Republic felt like returning home to your little (somewhat dysfunctional) family. I love these characters and all their flaws. Rin is fantastically real and honest and brutally unashamed about it, making her the most fantastic lead for these books.

The Poppy War left us all on edge, and this book is wracked with tension throughout. We see both sides of the battle waging within Rin as she tries to form herself on to the 'right' side and not always knowing which that is until it's too late. Add to this the darker side of the physical battles we encounter throughout, as we see first-hand the empire Rin is fighting for fall apart around her.

The writing is so fantastic that it grips you from the very beginning and refuses to let you go until you turn the last page. The last 100 pages especially are so amazingly brutal and heartbreaking and literally had me on the edge of my seat.

Now I have to wait for a copy of The Burning God to arrive so I can see what other ways R. F. Kuang can make me into a blubbering nervous wreak.

Victoria Justice

The Dragon Republic felt like returning home to your little (somewhat dysfunctional) family. I love these characters and all their flaws. Rin is fantastically real and honest and brutally unashamed about it, making her the most fantastic lead for these books.

The Poppy War left us all on edge, and this book is wracked with tension throughout. We see both sides of the battle waging within Rin as she tries to form herself on to the 'right' side and not always knowing which that is until it's too late. Add to this the darker side of the physical battles we encounter throughout, as we see first-hand the empire Rin is fighting for fall apart around her.

The writing is so fantastic that it grips you from the very beginning and refuses to let you go until you turn the last page. The last 100 pages especially are so amazingly brutal and heartbreaking and literally had me on the edge of my seat.

Now I have to wait for a copy of The Burning God to arrive so I can see what other ways R. F. Kuang can make me into a blubbering nervous wreak.

Savannah Winchell

4.5⭐️
It took run so long to grow in this book which bothered me. She’s never been dumb and even as vulnerable as she was at the beginning she seemed to be willingly blind to the motives of those around her. That being said I still love her and this was sick as hell.
Also I still want to kiss X but he’s a trash bag full of golden shit

Fraser Simons

Basically everything about the first book that gave me trepidation was expanded on to great effect in this one. The characters are messy as hell, and feel real. The focus on war that felt a bit gratuitous and not that thoughtful in the first book are the predominate point now. It’s more gritty than some dark fantasy stories I’ve read. This thing is for real.

Alaia

** spoiler alert **
           4.5 stars.

The Dragon Republic is a wild ride, but Kuang really cranked up the heat in the last few chapters, leaving me screaming repeatedly to myself at one in the morning. 

I love this world. I fell in love with The Poppy War’s ideas of Chinese shamans and all-powerful gods, and this book really cemented it for me. I love the concept of these powers coming with a cost that is too great to fathom, too great to bear.

What also stands out to me is how Kuang doesn’t flinch away from territory that most other YA authors wouldn’t dare venture. She writes of so many commonplace war atrocities in all its blistering detail, not limited to the gruesome murders most books touch on. She describes rape, the horrors of refugee camps, and weaves a meticulously complex story of war politics, showing how a decision made by one man can affect millions of his people. Showing how war is hardly ever, if at all, black and white. 

Standout characters include Kitay, Nezha and Daji. The first book developed Rin’s character but not much else, so it was satisfying to see some of the side characters get their time to shine. The Hesperians were also a delicious new addition for a ‘villain’, and who they represent in real life isn’t lost on me. 

Now, what did I dislike about this book, because there’s a reason it’s not a 5 star read. 

I didn’t like the lack of character development with Rin. She was deeply unpleasant and full of rage at the start of the book, in the middle of the book and at the very end of the book. There was no character arc—possibly middle book syndrome? I understand that she was constantly in pain and traumatised by her god, but she is also the protagonist and narrator of the story, so her personality became grating after a while. 

I didn’t like how the book itself seemed to end in the exact same place that The Poppy War ended, with Rin on the precipice of another war and full of rage at her enemies. No progress there. 

However, all this doesn’t negate the fact that The Poppy War series is a brilliant, incredibly strong YA fantasy that blows many other popular novels in the genre out of the water. It is well-researched, has a fast-paced and detailed plot, and a richly unique world to stand apart from other YA fantasy.

Plus, that TWIST at the end? Holy tiger’s tits, I’m losing my mind at that twist. Please, please please please, R.F. Kuang, drop that third book quickly.

Seth Swinney 

Love books with morally grey characters. Looking forward to starting the last in the series

Ashley Blue

I don't even have it in me right now to write a proper review like I normally would. My entire being has collapsed. I'll come back later. 

[EDIT] Okay I'm *kind of* ready now. 

“Rin was so tired of having to proof her humanity.”

"She'd adapted to fit in. She'd erased her identity to survive." 

"They believe in a singular and all-powerful deity, which means they cannot accept the truth of other gods. And when nations believe that other beliefs lead to damnation, violence becomes inevitable." 

"You can butcher the way you talk, you can turn away from the stench of the refugee camps and pretend you don't smell, too, but they are never going to think you're one of them." 

This isn't your standard fantasy war novel. It's a fantasy that expounds upon the brutal realities of trauma, drug addictions, the harrowing effects of colonization, and ethnocentrism (especially as it relates to colorism and xenophobia.) These topics are not haphazardly thrown in as side plots in an exploitative attempt to ascribe a novel as important (looking at you SJM) - they are driving, narrative pillars that are mired into the plot. Above all else, this  brilliant sequel  continues the tale of abrading inequity and iniquity, abrading the debasement of human beings by the color of their skin and the shape of their eyes, abrading the declaration that some are "unformed mud" in need of shaping and enlightenment.  

It's exhaustive, unrelenting, and overflowing with raw, unchecked emotions of the unheard. Kuang wants to make her readers uncomfortable with a story that is so grim and rooted within reality that it sucks you away into a black hole. The book relishes rage and revenge in such a way as to infuriate you so much so that it begins to expose the mold and the maggots that turns vengeance rotten. It burdens you with the hypocrisy of humanity and the endless cycle of cruelty - and with the knowledge that perhaps there is no fate, but only our choices and their consequences. 

Nothing about this book is easy - especially not the protagonist who is deeply flawed as we watch her battle with the moral corruption inevitable in the midst of a war. 

I am floored by this sequel as it leaves me limping towards the finale.

Manon van Heumen

Beth Bartholomew

The Poppy War moved very fast at the start of the writing, I felt like I knew the characters very well, very quickly. So entering into The Dragon Republic felt like returning to old friends. Rin is a fantastic lead because she is flawed and has many internal conflicts. She isn't your perfect protagonists, at times she may even come across as the antagonist depending on whose side you're on. She is guided by those around her, the sub-characters of this book have such a sway as to where the story goes, it really fuels the plot and reading experience. I feel like there are so many characters to love in this book and also so many to hate too. 

The tension in this book is clear, The Poppy Way left us on edge, but this book really shows us where the threat is. Rin desperately tries to fight for what she thinks is right and to be on the correct side of history. It is a constant internal battle for her, but there is also a constant stream of physical battles in this too. The atmosphere in this book is a lot darker than the first one, but also a lot richer as we see more sides of the empire fall apart. I found it really interesting to learn more about this world. 

R. F. Kuang writes so well, she really knows what she's talking about and that is evident through her creation of believable characters and a plot that completely sucked me in. She is probably, for this reason, an auto-buy author for me now, I love her work. If you strip down the plot for this series, you are left with a simple fight for power, but with Kuang's writing, this book is a tale of love and loss, power, control, war, philosophy and religion, loyalty and so much more. I'd imagine one-day people could write essays about this series, there is so much to talk about!

For such a big book, I was hooked the whole time. I barely put it down, I even downloaded it on kindle as well as owning the hardback so I could read it wherever I went. I was that person at the gym reading on my phone whilst also trying to exercise. I give R. F. Kuang a virtual cheer for The Dragon Republic, I can't wait to see where book three takes us!

The Dragon Republic

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