A review by 10000bees
A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

adventurous medium-paced
  • 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

5.0

This book took everything great about the first and just made it all that much more better. We get to see more characters and more sides to this fascinating, hungry empire without losing the threads of humanity that binds them all together. I hate to say that I love to watch someone struggle, but Mahit's was just so fascinating... that sense of loss, of being lost, of being untethered and drifting in the wideness of her own definition of you. I ate it up! And don't even get me started on Martine's writing. I had to bust out the tabs for this one, and I rarely do that.
 
<A man pretends... a barbarian pretends that civilization might grow in the small hours of the night, between two people.>
Mahit imagined it, civilization--humanity--blooming like tiny flowers, caught between mouths in the dark, lips that kissed and taught and built. 

If I let myself, I could rave for days about this book. The schemes, the politics, the world, the bloody history of Teixcalaan that we are so briefly acquainted with (hey, maybe that's why the councilors are acting like that...), and how could I forget the whole first contact with aliens bit? Top to bottom, this book was just a gorgeously complex work of art.