The Burning God by R F Kuang
The third and final book in R F Kuang's The Poppy War series, The Burning God came out in 2020. It is an Amazon Editors' Pick for Best Science Fiction and Fantasy. It brings The Poppy War series to a close, ending in a way that was mostly satisfying and not at all warm and fuzzy. R F Kuang has a new book coming out in September of 2026 called Taipei Story, a literary fiction standalone novel about a woman who joins a language program in Taipei to help her feel connected to her culture. The following review will have spoilers for the first two books in The Poppy War trilogy, The Poppy War and The Dragon Republic so be prepared if you decide to continue reading. If you've already read the books and you need a refresher on what happens, please check out our summary page. The Burning God deals with body horror, bullying, child death and adult death, references to rape and suicide, violence, blood, murder, fire resulting in injury, toxic friendship, colonization, injury detail, classism, and references to animal cruelty and death.
Rin is tired of putting her faith in people who just betray her and stab her in the back, both figuratively and literally. After helping the Republic demolish the Nikan Empire, she breaks from Vaisra and the Dragon Republic to return to the south. Of course, things do not go the way Rin thought they would and she is left in a battle of wills with her new allies in the Southern Coalition while they hold her up as a figurehead to keep morale up. Surrounded by people she cannot trust, Rin realizes that the people of the south are behind her. The southern masses see her as a fiery goddess come to save them. Rin decides to become that goddess, taking back first the south and then the rest of the Nikan from the Hesperians who want to take all their resources and grind them into the dirt. But the closer that Rin gets to her goal, the harder things get, and Rin starts to believe that the only person she can trust in the world is herself.
I'll give it to R F Kuang, she's clever. She really knows how to write a character that I cannot stand. Because I really do not like Rin. She is an incredibly unreliable narrator who is constantly contradicting herself on multiple levels, including her motivations and morals. In addition, I don't like or simply don't care about 98.5% of the characters in this book. Thank you to Kitay for not making that a full 100% (I don't hate Nezha either, though I certainly wouldn't say we'd be friends). But let's do a community slow clap for Kuang because she was so smart about Rin's descent into madness and paranoia that I did not see it coming until about a fifth of the way through this book and if I hadn't been describing it to my husband, I probably wouldn't have seen it until much later. This is a difficult book and series for me to review. I didn't really like any of the books. There are several things that I think Kuang did very well, but I wouldn't say that I enjoyed any part of this series. As books, none of them rate high for me. But the series as a whole tells a very interesting story and character arc. I would rate the series higher as a whole than any of the books, it's just too bad you have to read the books to get to the end of the series.
I'm giving The Burning God by R F Kuang 4 stars out of 5, not because I think it really deserves 4 stars as a book but because it brings the series to a close and the series probably deserves a 4 star rating. I didn't hate the story, I just hated the people. But then, you're supposed to - so job well done. If you'd like to remember what happens in any of The Poppy War series books, take a look at our summary page.
For more from R F Kuang, check out https://www.rfkuang.com/
Pairs well with some barley porridge and listening to the guy you call the smartest guy in the room, at least occassionally.
My favorite quotes:
"Hate was a funny thing. It gnawed at her insides like poison. It made every muscle in her body tense, made her veins boil so hot she thought her head might split in half, and yet it fueled everything she did. Hate was its own kind of fire and if you had nothing else, it kept you warm."
"'All right is not a term anyone would use to describe you.'"
"She understood now what she needed to do to cling to power: submerge the world in chaos, and forge her authority from the broken pieces."
"'Just because you can alter the world on a ridiculous scale doesn't mean the normal calculations no longer apply.'"
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