I was lucky enough to get a free copy in the spring of 2020 - however, I'm just now getting around to reading it. I wish I had started it much sooner because I flew through the first two books in the series.
This third is LONG. I googled to see if any pages were cut - and many pages were cut from this edition for the final edition. I didn't mind the length much, though if this hadn't been so good to read, I'm not sure I would remember all the events from the first few pages all the way to the end. Also, because there are many, many characters, it usually takes me a few chapters to remember who everyone is, their back story, etc... This third book just plows right into the story and keeps moving. Not much backstory is mentioned other than the story of the three shamans that are linked together (we see all three of these characters come together too! But that's closer to the end and you have to keep reading to find out Rin's journey to get them together).
The Burning God also gets a little overdone in the war aspect. As in Rin's character doesn't exactly move past the teenage brain into realizing the enormity of her decisions for burning through an entire country. However, her character is one to just do what her god wants to do - which is burn everything. She wants to destroy but completely forgets that her people need to recover too. They need food to live, shelter, education. The people of her country need to live a "normal" life for awhile to be able to be a prosperous country. When she goes back to the south region, she realizes that they have a treasure trove of poppy, which can make her money and lots of it. Instead of thinking things through and making a plan, she immediately wants to return to war - by selling all the poppy. And the people burn the poppy fields. They have realized that she craves war, and that she has no idea how they've lived or what they need to survive. They've put an end to her means.
Also, once she sees the New City with the Hesperians to save Kitay, it hasn't quite hit her that old school war techniques and shamans are probably no match for the lifestyle that the Hesperians live - once people see the clean city and aren't stepping in puddles of shit, they seem happier to be occupied. However, Rin just gets Kitay and they continue on with conquering the South and finding Nezha to defeat him. One thing that stands out in this written scene is that it's absolutely the west takes over the east. Gone are the old ways, and now in are the new modern ways of life - the author definitely taking this idea from real world wars. It's very sad to read in the book (and also in life too). The Hesperians feel their way of life is the better way of life. They also feel their race is better than Rin's. The whole book takes on race, skin color, class, and more. The author does an amazing job of pointing out all the differences and making the reader actually think about what is going on.
With this being the last in the trilogy, I'm so happy the author included a map so I could follow along with where these cities are in the whole of the book. I wish it was labelled a little more - such as where each character is from and where the armies had their skirmishes and large battles.
I really love to read YA fiction and trilogies, this one is pretty spectacular. I highly recommend reading The Poppy War trilogy, it's long, but it's definitely worth it!
