Another unpopular opinion. The Poppy War is the first book of a trilogy I was sure I would love. Unlike so many people on goodreads that love it, I did not enjoy this book, and I ended up skipping fast through the middle parts. What I learned from this book: Contemporary fantasy might not be for me. The book started very strong, 5 stars or close to 5, and then it started going down really fast. Once again, strong premise, strong beginning, but the execution failed for me. So many problems, but the main ones for me are: It gets repetitive at parts and too predictable; I felt that I already knew ahead of time every reaction and word that was about to come out of the mouth of the main character, and others. At first, I loved the main character, Rin. She seemed strong, determined, smart, and likable. Soon, though, she develops into this tiresome, detestable, know-it-all, arrogant character. The F-word and S-t word are a candy on her mouth, and often towards the very teacher who helped her get to the top. What it took the cake and the cherry, however, for me, was that the use of opium (addiction to opium) is been portrayed as a positive part of high level meditation, or similar. Maybe I have misunderstood the book or read it too fast to finish it. Either way, I got terribly bored.
The good thing about the book: The Poppy War Trilogy has been said to be a historical fantasy based on true history of China that I know nothing about it, so all the historical references have been lost to me (I wonder if I would have liked the book more if I could connected it to history). After reading this, I am very intrigued to read the real history to learn about the events that are supposedly being portrayed in the book's fantastical world. I will not be reading the other two books as at this point, I couldn't care less about the characters.