Books like The Poppy War
What should you read after R. F. Kuang’s novel? It depends on what you loved most about it.
- R. F. Kuang
- 2018
- Grimdark fantasy
What did you love about it?
Choosing one reorders everything below.
Best books to read after The Poppy War
Ranked overall. Pick what you loved above to re-rank them.
Best overall matchThe Rage of Dragons
Evan Winter
The closest thing to Rin's arc anyone else has written: a nobody grinding through a brutal martial school on pure rage, in a war that has already gone on generations.
- A war academy that breaks you
- A heroine who becomes the monster
- Shamanism that costs your mind
- Revenge plot, less political
Best for the murder schoolNevernight
Jay Kristoff
Another school where the curriculum includes your classmates' deaths, and another girl who decides that becoming something terrible is an acceptable price.
- A war academy that breaks you
- Exams as survival
- A heroine who becomes the monster
- Heavy footnote conceit
Great matchAn Ember in the Ashes
Sabaa Tahir
A military academy in an occupying empire, told from both a soldier's side and a slave's — the same setup as Sinegard, pitched for readers who want the romance kept in.
- A war academy that breaks you
- Atrocity rendered unflinchingly
- History barely fictionalised
- Romance drives much of it
Worth a look — with a warningThe Priory of the Orange Tree
Samantha Shannon
If you want Kuang's scale and its politics without the atrocity, Priory offers an eight-hundred-page epic with dragons and four continents to argue over.
- Gods who want to be let in
- History barely fictionalised
- 800 pages, slow first third
Best for magic with a real costJade City
Fonda Lee
Lee's jade does to its wearers what shamanism does to Rin: gives you power and takes your mind for it, in a twentieth-century city rather than a fantasy kingdom.
- Shamanism that costs your mind
- History barely fictionalised
- A heroine who becomes the monster
- Crime saga, not war epic
Great matchThe Bone Shard Daughter
Andrea Stewart
An empire that runs on pieces cut from its own citizens — the same argument Kuang makes about who pays for a state's power, made concrete and literal.
- History barely fictionalised
- Shamanism that costs your mind
- Gods who want to be let in
- Much less violent
Great matchThe City of Brass
S.A. Chakraborty
A con artist yanked into a court where centuries-old massacres are still the live argument. Chakraborty is as interested as Kuang in who gets to write the history.
- History barely fictionalised
- Gods who want to be let in
- A heroine who becomes the monster
- Romance carries a subplot
Great matchRed Sister
Mark Lawrence
Convent as combat academy, with Lawrence writing lessons and rankings and rivalries as compulsively as Kuang writes Sinegard's exams.
- A war academy that breaks you
- Exams as survival
- A heroine who becomes the monster
- Timeline jumps disorient early
Worth a look — with a warningThe Bear and the Nightingale
Katherine Arden
For the reader who came for the old gods rather than the war: Arden's spirits also require belief and offerings, and also take a girl further from human than is safe.
- Gods who want to be let in
- Shamanism that costs your mind
- Gentle pace, no battles
Great matchThe Grace of Kings
Ken Liu
Liu rebuilds the Chu-Han contention as fantasy, so you get the historical spine Kuang works from — rebellion, alliance, betrayal — with the atrocity kept at a distance.
- History barely fictionalised
- Gods who want to be let in
- A heroine who becomes the monster
- Distant, chronicle-style narration
Worth a look — with a warningA Darker Shade of Magic
V.E. Schwab
The palate cleanser on this list: fast, inventive fantasy with a magic system that corrupts its users, and none of the historical weight Kuang carries.
- Shamanism that costs your mind
- A heroine who becomes the monster
- Adventure tone throughout
Great matchThe Golem and the Jinni
Helene Wecker
Two beings built for someone else's purpose trying to work out what they owe themselves — Rin's question exactly, asked slowly in 1899 New York.
- A heroine who becomes the monster
- History barely fictionalised
- Gods who want to be let in
- Slow, quiet, no war
What should you read after The Poppy War?
The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang works on several levels at once, and which book you should read next depends on which of those levels got you. For most readers the closest match is The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter — the closest thing to Rin's arc anyone else has written: a nobody grinding through a brutal martial school on pure rage, in a war that has already gone on generations.
If what stayed with you was a war academy that breaks you, read Nevernight by Jay Kristoff instead: another school where the curriculum includes your classmates' deaths, and another girl who decides that becoming something terrible is an acceptable price. An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir is the other strong option — a military academy in an occupying empire, told from both a soldier's side and a slave's — the same setup as Sinegard, pitched for readers who want the romance kept in.
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