Reviews with content warning for War - A Desolation Called Peace

Reviews tagging 'War'

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

45 reviews

amandadevoursbooks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

I loved a memory called empire. This is a strong second to that book. We follow our main characters plus a couple more points of view, Maheet and Three Seagrass, that are introduced to this book. I don't want to spoil the end of the first book so I'm going to keep this pretty high level.

After the events of the first book, maheet desmar returns to the station and with the corrupted imago in her head. She has no friends on the station and is immediately embroiled in a battle of wits to keep herself and her imago line alive.

Three seagrass receives an emergency communicate, and she decides to answer it as a translator. Maheet is the linguist so she sidetracks through the station to pick her up and head to the front line of a war.

I loved this book. I loved revisiting the old characters. I liked the new points of view that were introduced. I also enjoyed the complexity of the culture of stationers and the empire.

This book continues to examine how The empire perceives everyone outside of it as not human. The aliens speak in a way that is totally different than how humans speak and the empire struggles with seeing them as thinking beings.

It's another ride of courtly politics and political intrigue. It adds a couple of new theaters. Overall, it was enjoyable, it was satisfying, and I'm really glad I read it.

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fraxisle's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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gaki's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

As the follow-up to Memory of Empire, I couldn't help but feel disappointed. Overall fine to read. It shifted from the wonderful world building of the first book to an almost-botched first encounter scenario, so the focus was odd.

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indeedithappens's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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kseret's review

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adventurous challenging hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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sunday_evening's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging funny reflective tense medium-paced

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

An incredible sequel and great close to the series. I can’t rate it 5 stars though because the beginning DRAGGED. It felt like the plot was moving at glacier-speed.
But once Three Seagrass and Mahit made it onto Wait for the Wheel, we hit the ground running. The rest was very well paced. I love Three Seagrass but at the same time she makes me want to rip my hair out.

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