The Burning God

Let me start by saying that what R.F. Kuang has accomplished with this series is phenomenal. Her use of real historical events to tell the story of Rin and her connection to the gods is a work of art. These books deserve to be celebrated, and I completely understand why they are so hyped.

However, I didn't have as strong of a reaction to this series, and specifically this book, as most people have. These books are focused on this war that is going on between these nations, and it gets very technical and very political, which just isn't my thing. (Please keep in mind, this is just a personal preference, not a knock on the writing itself.)

The pacing of this book felt too fast paced. There were some major events that took place that I didn't feel like we had any time to mourn because the other characters had already moved on. While I understand that this is war and it is actually a fast paced environment, I feel like the characters hardly thought twice about some pretty major deaths and events.

Being in Rin's head was not an enjoyable place to be. As she devolves into her powers and becomes constantly paranoid, I was constantly wanting a breather from her. This is the point of this story, and Kuang succeeded on this. I really felt so conflicted the entire story on almost every decision that Rin made. She was at times impossible to sympathize with. The downside to everything being from Rin's perspective is that it felt extremely hard to gain any sort of emotional attachment to everyone that wasn't Kitay. Whenever there were deaths or other awful events taking place, it was hard to feel upset about it because Rin was so distant from everyone. Again, I understand that this is intentional because she is slowly losing touch with reality, but it made the stakes not feel very high for most of the book.

My biggest gripe with the book is all of part 2. The entire goal throughout this part did not pay off for me. When I finished the last page of part 2, I was just like “that's it?” I felt like this entire section was a let down.

The ending was perfect. While I didn't cry like most people, I really felt like the ending was warranted and I walked away from the book feeling like that was the proper ending. I think I suspected that that was going to happen, but I think Kuang executed this perfectly. I felt like it tied everything up really nicely.

All in all, I highly recommend this series to anyone that like historical fantasy. It is dark and emotional. However, know that this book has major trigger and content warnings for Self-harm - Suicide - Violent rape - Sexual assault - Murder - Massacres - Brutalization - Mutilation - Torture - Substance abuse - Abuse - Emotional abuse - Physical abuse - Relationship abuse - Human experimentation - Chemical warfare - Genocide.