The Dragon Republic

The good, almost: this book is slightly better written on a sentence level than the first. It's not prose to write home about, but it's not as jarring. The telling-instead-of-showing is less constant, though still prominent, with a heavy reliance on “Rin thought X” and “Rin felt Y”. “Lackadaisical” and “ensconced” only clock in at two or three uses each this time, though there are eleven instances of lips curling, so maybe it's not that much better written. (Yes, I counted, and yes, I'm picky.)

The bad and the ugly: Rin sucks. A dislikeable main character still needs to be interesting and show development that makes it worth spending 650+ pages in their company. In the first book, whether likeable or not, Rin had a clear arc with momentum, driven by her own wit and tenacity. The Dragon Republic sees her wallow around being a gullible, myopic, charisma-free bonehead with no drive, initiative or tactical strengths other than being a magical Chosen One. James Thayer gave good advice when he said a main character should not be a fool, because a reader won't want to follow a character they don't respect. A few mistakes are fine, often important setup for plot and growth, but the protagonist shouldn't persistently be a fool. Rin is a fool and always the last person to know it. She's also a repellent combination of hateful and wishy-washy that is no fun whatsoever to read.

Even a warlike villain should have a moral compass and guiding logic in their own mind. Instead, Rin flip-flops between gleeful cruelty and moping about the tragedy of war; between being a hot-headed renegade and a passive sadsack with no agency. She snarks at everyone in sight but crumbles as soon as a male authority figure gives her a stern look. She's hostile and suspicious yet still a credulous moron. She has no philosophy, politics, or principles; her whole personality constantly turns on a dime. While some of her erratic behaviour could be attributed to grief, PTSD or addiction, none of those subjects are explored with any weight. The other characters don't inspire confidence that all Rin's flaws are by design, because almost nobody behaves or speaks like a fleshed-out, distinct human being.

Kuang pulled a couple of audacious moves in the first book, but this sequel lacks the emotional depth needed to address the aftermath in a meaningful way. The fate of not-Nanjing seems to have made less impression on Rin than the fate of Altan, who was at worst a cardboard cutout and at best an asshole she hardly knew, which is... something. It just begs why such horrors were invoked at all, because their impact is nothing compared to this guy's! Nobody can convince me that Altan had enough substance to loom so large over this story, and the author's pushing of that retcon left me baffled and annoyed.

Worst of all, this book is boring. I hardly liked The Poppy War at all, but it had more going for it than this. Any progression in Kuang's craft is set back by tepid pacing and one of the worst-written main characters I've read. No plot or character events feel truly significant until around the two-thirds mark, and the climax doesn't feel worth the wait. I might pick up the last book to see where this flaming wreck goes, but it would be a fully fledged hate-read and I'm trying to avoid that.