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A single POV book + a main character I absolutely hated = an extremely unenjoyable experience.

Before I explain why I gave this book a 1 star rating, I want to get though my positives. First positive thing I can say is that the book is done and I can now move on to other books. Okay, with that out of the way let's discuss the things I didn't like.

While there were many things that I had a problem with in this book, I think they can mostly be summed up into two main categories.

I hate the main character.

Rin is an extremely frustrating character to read about. I felt she had a good character arc in the first book that developed who she is as a person, and culminated in a shockingly brutal ending that was supposed to transform her into a different person for the final two books. And while it did indeed transform her, it was the entirely wrong direction from an enjoyability perspective. She completely lacks any form of empathy, makes horrific decisions consistently, an an internal monologue that is completely dry, and I found myself actively rooting against her as a character. So for a book to use a single POV from her perspective, this book became a chore to get through for me.

I do think her character could have been written in a more compelling way, but ultimately I think this book would have been massively better if it used multiple POVs. There were many characters in this book that I desperately wanted to learn more about and see things from their perspective (Kitay and Nezha in particular), and the lack of that ended up making their character development feel rushed and I got no direct attachment to these characters that I should have received.

I don't mind a good anti-hero, which is the core of what R.F. Kuang was going for here, but I was desperate for her to turn into one that I enjoyed reading about - someone with a cunning mind and you can feel the madness of them completely take over. But what I got instead was someone who consistently was getting played, was constantly questioning her choices, and reeked of insecurities until the very last pages. It's just so boring reading over, and over, and over again the formula of victory -> betrayal -> compassion being overrode by bloodlust. It quickly got old and formulaic.

This book rides the line between fantasy and historical fiction, and it would have benefitted by picking a lane and running with it.

There are huge sections of this series, and this book, that mirror real life events from Chinese history. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good history book - but this book rode the line too much and ultimately for me wasn't a good history book, or a good fantasy book. A real history book of these events would have been exponentially more brutal, and made the reader feel far more emotions than what ended up getting evoked here.

I've heard from many people that this book "broke them" and was a great look into the brutality of war. And when I hear these things I end up just thinking that these people are either finding something in this book that just didn't work for me, or they have little to no experience reading historical war books. And while this book did have many dark events happen, this felt like the YA version of a vicious war story.

At the end of the day, nothing is darker than actual history. So if you want a better book in my opinion, you should go read a biographical account of Mao (who is basically Rin with some differences) or get a book that delves into the specifics of some of the darkest aspects of Mao's reign like Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine. Or you should go on the other side of the spectrum and go full war fantasy with a unique story and pick up something like The Black Company."