The Poppy War Trilogy - printed edges - R. F. Kuang

Great power is always associated with great danger.

The difference between a great person and a mediocre one is that the former is willing to take risks.

What connection could there be between a war orphan, neither beautiful nor educated, and the Sinegard Military Academy, the most prestigious institution in the Nikan Empire? Rin has been told all her life that she deserves no more than what she's given, and a marriage proposal would be unexpected luck. But she is capable of anything to get into the Academy, where she gradually transforms, not only into a soldier who will respond to the new threat of war, but also into a practitioner of a long-forgotten art. After meeting the sole survivor of the most horrific genocide, Rin discovers that summoning gods can bring terrible consequences…

I've become something wonderful, she thought. I've become something terrifying.

Was she a goddess or a monster now? Perhaps neither. Perhaps both.