this book is in the running for one of my favorite reads of the year. i cannot believe that i read this book in 3 days, i've never read a fantasy book so quickly.

🠶first and foremost i have to let everyone know this book is NOT young adult or romance, at all, in any sense of the words okay now that that's been said lets goooo. 🠴

if you need to know the levels of violence and gore that are in this book i highly recommend looking up the second sino-japanese war, unit 731, and the rape of najing. it deals heavily with the use of opium, and is indeed one of the best depictions of the brutalities of war that i've ever read.

this story starts with Rin, a war orphan who has to choose between an arranged marriage or testing into the most prestigious military school. once she defies all odds by being a poor, dark-skinned, war orphan that got the highest score in her class, she learns that studying was only the first step of a treacherous journey that involves learning war strategies, facing racism, classism, prejudice, magic, drugs, shamanism, gods, and eventually, war. there is a very clear Asian influence in this book, which isnt surprising when you think about the fact that the war depicted is inspired by true war crimes commited against Chinese citizens. there are so many heartbreaking aspects of this book, one of the biggest ones being that these are actual teenagers facing war, genocide, and death.

“Children ceased to be children when you put a sword in their hands. When you taught them to fight a war, then you armed them and put them on the front lines, they were not children anymore. They were soldiers.”

the book itself is also written in a way that's extremely readable but still has depth to it (hopefully that makes sense?)

TLDR:
⯌historical fantasy fiction
⯌readable
⯌excellent worldbuilding
⯌badass fmc
⯌real depictions of war
⯌best historical fantasy book i've ever read
⯌i was speechless