I’ve found an author that I can legitimately say I don’t like reading.

Bold, I know, but let me explain.

So last year, I read and wrote a review for Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang. I praised the book for its nuanced and imaginative incorporation of fantasy into real-world history, creating a believable setting with thematic weight to back it up. Babel unfortunately fell off in the climax; I wrote that I felt like I was “reading a newspaper relating the events of the day” as the final pages unfolded. The characters were not active participants in the climax, relying instead on exposition to explain what was happening, leaving the story feeling limp.

Nevertheless, I turned to Kuang’s earlier works. I really wanted to like The Poppy War. After the promise of Babel, I was hoping for the same thoughtful theming with perhaps a snappier plot. Fundamentally, though The Poppy War exists in a fictional world, it may as well follow the same pattern as Babel and present a real-world history altered by magic. Additionally, I’m always searching for more Eastern-inspired fantasy after reading favorites like Parker-Chan’s She Who Became the Sun and Kristoff’s Lotus War trilogy. Last year I almost ranked Steel Crow Saga on my books of the year list before my research unveiled some unfortunate truths about its author (look it up if you must; it took some digging on Twitter and hoo-boy).

I generally enjoyed Babel, so I went into The Poppy War excited for its fantastical retelling of warfare and politics between China and its neighbors. By the time I was halfway through, I was sad to find that Babel’s same overly expository language plagues The Poppy War. While I finished and generally enjoyed Babel, I actually had to put The Poppy War down early. This same feeling where the perspective character was sitting in a room, looking out a window and seeing the actual events of the story happen pervaded the first half of the book. More than two years had passed in the plot yet I was left with little notable impression from any of the characters, even as the more significant ones get killed off. War had broken out and the goings-on of the heroine felt so bland and removed from the interesting conflict.

I was three-hundred pages in and I felt like Kuang had yet to really hook me with any narrative weight. Worse, I realized I had been carried along for all those pages on a wave of story beats built entirely upon tired tropes of the fantasy genre, a sentiment I’ve since seen repeated in reviews on Goodreads.

Off the top of my head, here are the most prominent and egregious tropes (all of which can, strangely, be immediately connected to Harry Potter):

• Girl from an abusive foster family escapes her situation to be trained at an elite academy
• Magical school
• She is looked down on by many for her upbringing
• Rich classmates take an immediate dislike of our heroine and attempt to sabotage her
• A nasty professor detests the main character and shuns her
• Wizened, austere mystic favors the main character and trains her in arcane arts 
• As a ‘chosen one’, the main character surpasses all expectations with some inherent ability

What ultimately broke my interest in the book was realizing an entire plot point was lifted from the most seminal of childhood novels for my generation: Holes by Louis Sachar. Bear with me here.

In the novel, The Poppy War’s main character was tasked with carrying a pig up a mountain where it would drink from a spring and grow strong. Of course, the other motive was to strengthen our swine-laden heroine in the meantime. That scratched at an old memory of mine, wherein a character from Holes was forced to similarly take a pig up a mountain. A few days ago, I was having dinner with my family. My sister, for reasons I can’t recall, brought up the character Madame Zeroni from Holes. It all clicked suddenly. I had to look it up immediately because I thought I was crazy. But no, the exact same thing happens in Holes, with a character repeatedly watering a pig at the top of a mountain, though in this case to produce the superior wedding gift.

This wasn’t just a recognizable trope; Kuang lifted an entire set piece from what’s likely one of the most read books of my generation. I know The Poppy War was a debut novel, but this broke my already waning interest. My attention had already been flagging due to the lack of memorable characters or interesting plot developments. But this book just suddenly seemed lazy to me, and so I lost interest three-hundred pages in.

The most unfortunate thing is there were portions of the novel that truly grabbed me. Kuang writes interpersonal drama and action sequences with captivating style. The halfway point in The Poppy War saw a city siege and battle that was executed wonderfully and I thought this was the moment that Kuang would reel me in. But then the excitement passed, the setting changed, and a handful of new supporting characters are introduced in the span of two pages. The plot grinds to a halt. In a more well-paced book, I felt like that should have been the end of book one and the beginning of the second.

Regardless, going back to Kuang’s debut novel made it apparent how I honestly enjoyed her follow-up work much more by comparison. Yes, there was plenty about Babel that irked me, but Kuang’s meticulous attention to academic theory is on clear display in both novels (curiously, she does seem to have a pervasive interest in writing about magical schools, a trope I must admit that I enjoy). Even with my negative experience with The Poppy War, I look forward to whatever comes next for R.F. Kuang. There is a certain magic to the fervor Kuang brings to her worldbuilding, so I hope that energy gets captured once more.

Do I currently enjoy reading Kuang’s books? No – regardless, I do hope her next release will strike all the right chords with me and I can then revise my judgment.