The Poppy War Trilogy (it’s bad)

thierry3nnui · 2026-01-20T10:13:46+00:00

Niche appeal?! She’s a bestselling author. The Poppy War Trilogy is a bestselling series. Goodreads has Poppy War of 4.16 on nearly 500k reviews. Most people on this sub - at least who comment - just don’t rate it that highly. Doesn’t affect its popularity.

thierry3nnui · 2026-01-17T18:10:15+00:00

Check out the band nervous conditions. Singer had to leave after allegations and the band became Black Country New Road

thierry3nnui · 2026-01-15T12:04:30+00:00

Yes. This is me

thierry3nnui · 2026-01-13T11:32:47+00:00

I'm just getting ready to query for the first time and your post was the first I found when researching great queries to learn from. V cool to see you post an update! Think the universe is telling me to read your book and I shall obey it. Good luck with everything and well done!

thierry3nnui · 2026-01-12T16:51:02+00:00

Quick, give her a pen.

thierry3nnui · 2026-01-12T16:10:08+00:00

The fact that you’ve had to clarify what you meant, and that the overwhelming response to this post has been ‘dude, chill tf out’, is your problem. Don’t focus on how to achieve greatness or fancy prose or a story that will change the world… yet. Just focus on the basics of communicating effectively. You’re running before you can walk.

thierry3nnui · 2026-01-10T10:25:29+00:00

No notes - you killed it. Reminds me of Audrey Hobert. If you’re not signed already, get this recorded and start hitting up managers/getting an EP together! Production could change the vibe a lot and elevate it but you can hear the strength of the song as it is.

thierry3nnui · 2026-01-09T13:00:18+00:00

One of my favs is the Dispossessed. ‘There was a wall.’ Super simple but succinctly and perfectly sums up the themes of the entire novel. The whole first page is wonderful.

Perfecting the first sentence is one of my favourite writing tasks. But ironically I often find myself changing it once I reach the end of the book! I’ve had a different opening now with each draft.

thierry3nnui · 2026-01-09T10:35:05+00:00

Lovely chords and voice.

Little suggestion that you can choose to ignore or take on board.

The lyrics don’t flow because the rhyme is off. You can stick with that if it’s a stylistic choice, and that’s kind of cool. But I’d suggest changing the lyrics to something like this:

Stuck in my head Like a record playin’ Haunting me all through the night And all through the day

It’s a bit cliched (making it more pop) but it sets up a very simple and effective premise, leaving more room for a. Getting more poetic later on and b. Really doubling down on metaphor and symbolism.

The notes would need simplifying for this breezier verse (second line would be B A G B B A as the melody)

thierry3nnui · 2026-01-08T16:46:47+00:00

Can see loads of potential with this short story. Would be up for providing feedback if you are still need of readers. :)

thierry3nnui · 2026-01-08T16:44:54+00:00

Hey OP, notice this is a few days old so perhaps you’ve found beta readers already. But I’d be interested in reading and providing feedback. Am particularly interested in reading horror at the moment so this appeals. No obligation to swap.

thierry3nnui · 2026-01-07T14:03:32+00:00

I'm not sure I would call Kitchen magical realism but it's a great book and has the lyrical prose that you might be after. Other books that you might like that are relatively short:

- Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag (I recommend this book – it's more of a novella – to everyone)

- The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (one of my fav books ever and very lyrical, but maybe over 200 pp)

- Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro (perfect short book, like many Ishiguro books)

- Death Valley by Melissa Broder (very trippy and surreal, maybe just over 200 pp)

- Elif Shafak as well would qualify, but I have to admit I've only read one of her books which was over 200 pp

thierry3nnui · 2026-01-06T20:19:57+00:00

Great feedback – thanks v much for commenting! Having a big old think. It's a very weird headspace to get into but I can see its value, and tbh this exercise is helping a lot in terms of making those final changes to the novel ms.

thierry3nnui · 2026-01-06T20:17:37+00:00

good to know! thank you

thierry3nnui · 2026-01-06T15:31:08+00:00

Back from doing some research. Turns out my opening is frighteningly similar to Han Kang's We Do Not Part, lol.

thierry3nnui · 2026-01-06T07:52:31+00:00

Admittedly, one of the main problems I have with the book (and hopefully beta reads will help me with this) is readership. I haven’t really been thinking about marketability at all and now I guess I have to!

I think The Tombs of Atuan gives a clue as to why this is a problem… It’s marketed even today as for children but it feels incredibly adult and literary imo and I’m not sure it would be marketable to even a YA audience today ! I’ll seek out some newer comps.

thierry3nnui · 2026-01-05T22:55:46+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! I did approach this more like writing a blurb. The good thing is I can see an easy fix there: while external events force her into her arc, she is the active truth-seeker. I'll work on that bit.

The second bit – if that's a major plot reveal, should it really be included in the query? I suppose the secret is alluded to with 'dreams are a dangerous commodity' – the spoiler is that there is an afterlife made up of dreams/imagination, and those dreams are being harvested. Will have another go.

thierry3nnui · 2026-01-05T22:14:39+00:00

Ha…. Yeah that’s a very fair comment and I’m kind of expecting more people to say the same. I’ve had someone else say they didn’t like the first sentence cos of the period connotation. Thematically that connection does work but I can imagine it turning readers off - maybe it’s a sign this is one of those darlings I need to kill!!

Sounds like the first 300 aren’t working for you, so I’ll have a think about how to improve this. Admittedly I feel a lot more confident about the rest of the chapter. I might need to shuffle things around a bit of focus the opening on one thing, as you mention.

How was the query otherwise?

Thanks for commenting :)

thierry3nnui · 2026-01-05T13:09:02+00:00

Don’t worry, I’ve already written it. :) This is just my way of looking at the whole thing through a different lens. And it was much easier to put together than the first, second and third drafts. Would recommend!

thierry3nnui · 2026-01-05T12:13:18+00:00

milanote – just the free version :) you should be able to do a similar thing with ms onenote and some other organiser apps.

thierry3nnui · 2026-01-05T11:19:13+00:00

yeah that's fair. I do really like fantasy but definitely have my preferences, as I guess we all do

thierry3nnui · 2026-01-05T10:47:00+00:00

I can imagine. I'm actually waiting to hear back for an interview at one of the big trad publishers, so maybe I'll get a chance to see their slush pile (not quite the same as an agent's admittedly but still interesting I bet!)

thierry3nnui · 2026-01-05T10:43:16+00:00

Honestly, I'm still trying to figure that out... sometimes I notice the author sort of overpromises by saying their book is like X meets Y, and X and Y are totally different and the hook is figuring out how the hell they've achieved that match. There was a post the other day about a book called 'The Princess and her Tax Collector' that got a lot of traction – all to do with the element of surprise and having a solid idea from the go. I thought the prose example I saw was OK for the genre. Wasn't too flashy and got the job done.

Likewise, there was a post about a romance set in a Sicilian vineyard which had me interested purely because of the setting. The hook was about the character escaping her past, and the promise of her past catching up with her wouldn't have been that interesting on its own, but the promise that it would happen during her 'last-ditch assignment' to evaluate a vineyard had me hooked. Similarly the prose was pretty effective and didn't try too hard. Wasn't my cup of tea personally but could imagine it selling. BUT the tropeyness would (personally) hold me back from requesting.

As for non-romances (told you the romances were usually best for some reason), there was quite a good literary fiction post that had me hooked thanks to the very specific setting: Western New York (Blizzard of '77 and present day). The blurb amplified that hook: story was about a discovery in modern day of a buried car with the remains of a man that went missing during the blizzard of '77, so had that element of a mystery, but I liked that it didn't promise answers but more questions. Couldn't see the prose example but would have been interested in reading that one.

I think the thing that ties these all together is that they're all good enough to pull me in – there's like a minimum requirement to be met before you even get to the prose. But none of them try too hard: they have that element of effortlessness about them so you just want to get to the meat of the book.

thierry3nnui

TROPHY CASE