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maddiebusick's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Xenophobia, Violence, War, Colonisation, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Medical content, Sexual content, Vomit, Cursing, Death, and Grief
Moderate: Gun violence, Alcohol, Deportation, and Suicide
booksthatburn's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
A DESOLATION CALLED PEACE is a collision of cultures bleeding into war, trying to find the bounds of personhood in more than flesh and bone.
The plot follows several parallel threads, centering on various characters. I love Twenty Cicada’s storyline. He’s one of my favorite characters, followed closely by Eight Antidote. Mahit and Three Seagrass are working together again, this time to find a way to communicate with the aliens whose proximity Mahit had used as leverage in the previous book. The worldbuilding focuses on intra-empire politics as much as it focuses on the empire’s communications with Mahit and with the aliens. It balances stress and war with levity and intimacy, exploring connections and communication as characters with conflicting methods and competing aims collide.
This answers a few things left hanging from the first book, showing the next steps without closing much off. There’s a new storyline involving aliens which is almost entirely new (the existence of those aliens was pivotal in Mahit’s big move at the end of A MEMORY CALLED EMPIRE). A few major things involving those aliens are both introduced and resolved. It specifically leaves aspects of Mahit’s relationships to other characters to be resolved later, but with substantial changes from how they were at the start of the book. Some of narrators are the same, with the addition of a new perspective between sections. I don’t think Eight Antidote was a narrator last time, if he was it was brief, but he, Mahit, and Three Seagrass are all narrators this time.
This story likely wouldn’t make sense to anyone who hadn’t read the first book. Because Mahit was on her first journey as an ambassador last time, A MEMORY CALLED EMPIRE had a lot of exposition which could fit naturally into that story. A DESOLATION CALLED PEACE is therefore (assuming one read the first book) free to focus on building up descriptions of the fleet, the Shards, and the aliens, leaving the Empire and its basic details to be shown but more rarely explained.
The ending utterly devastated me, wrapping up the main story and leaving me sated, but promising more in the vast future now made possible by the resolution.
Graphic: Sexual content, Medical content, Death, Grief, Blood, Gore, Medical trauma, and War
Moderate: Cursing, Colonisation, Violence, Genocide, Fire/Fire injury, Panic attacks/disorders, Alcohol, and Vomit
Minor: Suicide, Ableism, and Self harm
tahsintries's review against another edition
4.5
Moderate: Genocide, Medical content, and Xenophobia
criticalgayze's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
I think the choice to move all of the characters into unknown territory in the sequel works in this novel's favor and boosts it slightly over A Memory Called Empire for me. My major gripe with Memory was that I felt the reader was not given quite enough world building on the Teixcalaan empire to understand and appreciate all the machinations of the palace intrigue plot. I also thought it focused too much on describing, rather than showing, poems as a cornerstone of the Teixcalaan society's culture. In A Desolation Called Peace, the poetry element plays a much more minor role, and the story moves away from the under built empire to a first-contact narrative. This allows all three societies involved in the engagement to be on unsure footing, and it forces Martine to have to explain for the benefit of all involved. (The issue is not fully resolved, however, as we do still get some of the under-explained dissidence in the empire via the storyline of the empire's heir.)
I also really appreciated the use of a choral narration. The reemergence of choral narration is proving a big stylistic device in recent literary fiction, and I am appreciative of the grandeur of it all.
I would also like to again shout out Amy Landon, who returns to the sequel to provide fantastic narration.
Graphic: Blood, Medical content, and Death
Moderate: Sexual content, Genocide, and Xenophobia
just_one_more_paige's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Violence, War, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, and Sexual content
totallyshelfaware's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Graphic: Death, Blood, Medical content, and War
Moderate: Colonisation and Xenophobia
Minor: Grief and Genocide
cerilouisereads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Body horror, Blood, Death, Gore, Medical content, War, Violence, and Cursing
Moderate: Sexual content and Xenophobia
Minor: Genocide
mandkips's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Moderate: Death, Medical content, Sexual content, Body horror, Gore, Xenophobia, and Genocide
trips's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Body horror, Vomit, Medical content, and Genocide
nullandvoidlibrary's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Graphic: Death, Blood, and Medical content
Moderate: Sexual content