Genre - Fantasy (Mainly Grimdark/Military)
Setting - Nikara Empire (inspired from Asian War History/Mythology)
Trigger Warnings - Rape,Gore,Genocide,Physical Abuse,Violence,Self Harm,Torture,Racism etc...(mostly everything)
My Rating - ☆☆☆☆1/2 (out of 5)
Rin is a war orphan, who lives with her foster parents in the Rooster Province of Nikara Empire.Already in the midst of Opium smuggling due to her abusive adopted family, now she also have to escape a forced arrange marriage with the man twice her age. For her the only way to escape from this is to pass the Keju test which will give her free admission to one of the most prestigious military academy at Sinegard and a chance to leave this rotten place, for once and all.
But soon Rin will find that her struggle does not ends with passing the exams or even learning new shamanic power and making her way up into the academy. Her actual test will start when, as a novice soldier, she will face the actual horrific side of a war and the army of Federation.
To win this war, she will have to use all the force of her power,but will she get to know the true limit of her power in the process or the cost of it will be too great for her and entire nation to pay?
My Thoughts
What a roller coaster ride!
Really..as you pretty much can sum up from the summary above, it all starts out like most of the YA Fantasy books...with a school, trust me it is not like these at all. We have a military school not specifically a magic school...well magic do exists in the world but it is more spiritual and godly or you can say shamanic magic, which in most of the Empire, consider as a myth. But that's where the similarity of YA fantasy ends.I would not consider it a YA Fantasy at all.It's too dark and mature read for that.
Divided into the three parts, each part is like a progressive and intense journey of Rin in the span of few years.
First part introduces us to this dark and opium obsessed empire of Nikara, which have a dark and war driven bloody history attached with it. This world is a nightmare, where peasants are treated very badly, racism is present and have no peace among the twelve provinces warlords. Long story short...Nikara, once again, is on the verge of attack from their enemy neighbour ,'Federation of Mugen'. So to produce more capable soldiers, Nikara has a prestigious military school where every year fine soldiers passes out to different divisions.We see this whole new world along with our protagonist 'Rin'. Having come from the south, she is also unfamiliar with north situated 'Sinegard' as we are. I really liked that part. Seeing Rin's struggles and determination on the unfamiliar ground was really interesting and I flew through first 200 pages of the book!
Second part was where third poppy war actually starts and we see how she joins the new division under a known yet unfamiliar commander. She gets to know a different side of her power and meets other outcasts like her.This part was pretty much the training and them working together as a team. It was an okay part though little slow.
But the third part!!! My God! It was the third part of this book which in actuality gave this book reputation of a grimdark/bloody fantasy. Few chapters in this part were so dark and horrific that it makes you wonder how anyone can be that much inconsiderate of another life.That showed a very dark side of war I have never read in any book ever! And to think it was created with something that actually happened in the history ( The Rape of Nanjing).I shuddered to even imagine what it was actually like.
Overall I loved this book, especially the military school, world building and was very invested in the characters.
Very eagerly waiting for the second book in this trilogy!
4.5 Stars!
Buy on Amazon!
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