4.5/5 stars

I have been procrastinating this review for a while now. This was my first read of 2021, so I am starting the year off with a bang for sure. R.F Kuang's Poppy War series is my favourite fantasy series of all time. It is gritty, grueling and just extremely action-packed. As I think many of you can relate to, when I love a series so much I get very nervous about whether the last book will be a good conclusion. While this book wasn't my favourite in the series, and the ending was honestly devastating to me, I still absolutely loved the book and the series. If I had to rate this book independently of the series, I would have no idea what I would give it. But because my absolute adoration of this series means I cannot control my feelings or be rational at all, the five star rating represents my love of the series as a whole rather than the book alone.

So it is pretty hard to delve into anything in this story without spoiling this book or the first two books in the series. I don't even want to really mention which characters are in this book, because that alone might be considered a spoiler. So pretty much because of that, this might be a very difficult review to write. Despite that, I also have so many feelings that I can't help but want to ramble my love for this series and for Rin. Kuang is absolutely no stranger to dragging her characters through hell and back. This series is one of the most intense and dark fantasy series that I have read, portraying the horrors of war in such a vivid way. It is heartbreaking, very morally grey and overall just a rollercoaster for the emotions. This book really just amplified all of that because the end was in sight and the stakes felt so much higher.

"She was a goddess. She was a monster. She‘d nearly destroyed this country. And then she‘d given it one last, gasping chance to live.”

Rin was very Rin in this book...let me explain. This whole series shows Rin struggling with who she is, what ethics she should follow and how to distinguish herself from her past. I think Rin really comes into her own in this book, regardless of whether this person is good or not. Rin is such a difficult character to explain. She is both deeply unlikeable and also my favourite female character of all time. I love Rin with all of my heart. I have watched her struggle from her beginnings as a poor war orphan to the last Speerly and an extremely powerful Shaman. We have watched her struggle with abuse, have to make some of the most difficult decisions and be torn apart by war. Through all of this, I have become extremely attached to Rin, which made reading this book very difficult. Lets just say she really struggled in this book, which is not a spoiler because she went through hell in every book in this series. This also made leaving this series behind very difficult, because leaving Rin behind feels heartbreaking. For me, she is the absolute heart of this series even though there are so many other great characters.

As always, the strategy, war and action in this book was phenomenal. I absolutely love scheming, was planning and full-on action-packed fighting. If you are like me, then you would absolutely love this book and probably the others in the series. This book in particular is full of scheming and war planning, especially since our beloved characters are trying their hand at leadership. This made the book epic on scale, extremely intense and full of action and excitement.

"You never want to hurt them. But you have to. You have to put them through hell, because that’s the only way anyone else will survive.”