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A review by afrathefish
The Dragon Republic by R.F. Kuang
4.0
3.85-4 - subject to change
it feels quite insane to me that this series is what rebecca f kuang wrote to ‘sharpen her quill’ ahead of writing babel, bc it’s insane how much this series holds up in of itself
this book sees rin grappling with the consequences of her actions, fall to the fickleness of her whims under her self delusion that she’s doing the right thing , and trying and failing and learning how to live in a world amid her fuckups. i usually have a very low tolerance for characters who are dumb, arrogant and shitty. but it has to be said, kuang really does set a precedent on how to write an anti hero, and how to write characters who are antithetical to good. we see rin commit the most heinous shit, yet readers are tempted to still root for her. as said by anthony burgess, change is the turn in which a piece of work becomes fiction; anything removing that change turns a work from the field of fiction into an allegory - and kuang took this premise and ran with it. because no matter what happens, we still see rin trying to change, shifting her views, sometimes being cowardly in facing her fuckups but still in a state of constant atonement. and by god it’s so nice seeing she actually has people around her who love her and back her.
the plot is very well-paced too. though i took my time with this book - it was not because i was ever bored. i am just experiencing a fantasy fatigue and often the idea of binging through a 500+ page fantasy book does NOT work for me currently. however, every time i picked the book up, i was transported right back to where I left off; i needed no recap as every moment feels memorable. there is something remarkable about kuang’s descriptive writing; it truly is a marvel when you’re able to be transported so viscerally to the heart of a story that you’re able to forget the world around you. her gore is equally descriptive, to points where you flinch reading certain scenes. there was a scene that saw a character of importance injure a part of their body and not joking it felt so real I flinched and pulled back that body part off of myself! i’ve never experienced that before.
it’s a shame because i really wish i had read this a few years earlier. if i had read this in my teens, there is no doubt in my mind that it would’ve changed my life. i also had several qualms, but those qualms feel unfair as they’re mainly comparatives to her later works such as babel and yellow face , and again, she was writing this book while she was the same age as me. thus , i must humble myself.
all in all. kuang’s mastery knows no bounds. it’s a shame i’m so sick of fantasy bc otherwise i feel like i’d be rabid for this series, and would’ve been able to appreciate that mastery a lot better.
it feels quite insane to me that this series is what rebecca f kuang wrote to ‘sharpen her quill’ ahead of writing babel, bc it’s insane how much this series holds up in of itself
this book sees rin grappling with the consequences of her actions, fall to the fickleness of her whims under her self delusion that she’s doing the right thing , and trying and failing and learning how to live in a world amid her fuckups. i usually have a very low tolerance for characters who are dumb, arrogant and shitty. but it has to be said, kuang really does set a precedent on how to write an anti hero, and how to write characters who are antithetical to good. we see rin commit the most heinous shit, yet readers are tempted to still root for her. as said by anthony burgess, change is the turn in which a piece of work becomes fiction; anything removing that change turns a work from the field of fiction into an allegory - and kuang took this premise and ran with it. because no matter what happens, we still see rin trying to change, shifting her views, sometimes being cowardly in facing her fuckups but still in a state of constant atonement. and by god it’s so nice seeing she actually has people around her who love her and back her.
the plot is very well-paced too. though i took my time with this book - it was not because i was ever bored. i am just experiencing a fantasy fatigue and often the idea of binging through a 500+ page fantasy book does NOT work for me currently. however, every time i picked the book up, i was transported right back to where I left off; i needed no recap as every moment feels memorable. there is something remarkable about kuang’s descriptive writing; it truly is a marvel when you’re able to be transported so viscerally to the heart of a story that you’re able to forget the world around you. her gore is equally descriptive, to points where you flinch reading certain scenes. there was a scene that saw a character of importance injure a part of their body and not joking it felt so real I flinched and pulled back that body part off of myself! i’ve never experienced that before.
it’s a shame because i really wish i had read this a few years earlier. if i had read this in my teens, there is no doubt in my mind that it would’ve changed my life. i also had several qualms, but those qualms feel unfair as they’re mainly comparatives to her later works such as babel and yellow face , and again, she was writing this book while she was the same age as me. thus , i must humble myself.
all in all. kuang’s mastery knows no bounds. it’s a shame i’m so sick of fantasy bc otherwise i feel like i’d be rabid for this series, and would’ve been able to appreciate that mastery a lot better.