Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

39 reviews

cerilouisereads's review

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Blood, Death, Gore, Medical content, War, Violence, and Cursing

Moderate: Sexual content and Xenophobia

Minor: Genocide

hanarama's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The Good:

• Stunning world building
• Multiple, opposing POV 
• Complex characters 

The Bad:

• POV changes unexpectedly within chapters
• A lot of set up, slow-paced

You Might Like this if You Like: 

• First contact stories, eg. The Arrival
• Political Intrigue
• Gradually rising tension from multiple threats 
• Non-humanoid aliens 

Arkady Martine delivers a really powerful sequel to her excellent debut novel, A Memory Called Empire. The novel picks up about 2-3 months after the events of Memory. The conflicts with the newly discovered non-human aliens has escalated, with Mahit and Three Seagrass finding themselves at the center of the growing danger. Struggling with personal battles in addition to interplanetary ones, the two women must race to bridge the divide between their peoples and the aliens. 

This novel expands many of the themes presented in Memory. Most notably, Martine continues to examine the effects of colonialism, both on the colonized and the colonizers. Through Three Seagrass and Mahit, she investigates to power imbalances of romantic relationships between individuals on either side. Martine lets her characters ask if two people in such a relationship can be equal partners, and what does it mean for the colonized partner. Can they ever really turn down the colonizer when their requests are so similar to demands? 

Questions of what constitutes "You" and "We" and "Them" pervade all parts of this book. Asking readers to explore these concepts alongside the characters.  Many different perspectives are presented through Martine's rich characters. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Colonisation, Death, and Sexual content

bookishjd's review

adventurous challenging emotional reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Sexual content, Vomit, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Gore, Grief, and Violence

mandkips's review

challenging mysterious 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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Medical content, Sexual content, Body horror, Gore, Xenophobia, and Genocide

nullandvoidlibrary's review against another edition

adventurous tense medium-paced

• 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood, and Medical content

Moderate: Sexual content

freedryk's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing and Sexual content

Moderate: Body horror, Medical trauma, Violence, and Vomit

Minor: Genocide, Panic attacks/disorders, and Racism

idksamiguess's review against another edition

adventurous challenging 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Vomit

Moderate: Genocide, Sexual content, and Xenophobia

grinchem's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A Desolation Called Peace has the same delicious words as the first book, but with a different focus. While the first book revolved around the political complexity of the City, its sequel instead focuses more on the unknown, alien intelligence they've encountered in the far reaches of known space. The story explores the ideas of what makes a person, and how to communicate with an intelligence that is fundamentally different from your own, and what that means for those intelligences who are members of your own species.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual content

achingallover's review

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful reflective tense slow-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

5.0

phenomenal

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Body horror, Death, Genocide, Grief, Gun violence, Medical content, Racism, Sexual content, Violence, and Xenophobia