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183 reviews

Corin

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Corin is Currently Reading

Corin is currently reading

A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan, #2)

by Arkady Martine (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: reviewed, 2022, currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in March 2022

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Corin said: " 4,75/5 Stars

Fleet Captain Nine Hibiscus is losing a way against an enemy they can't possibly understand With an alien armada lurking at the edges of Teixcalaani space, threatening the Empire, both Three Seagrass and Mahit Dzmare can't seem to keep aw 4,75/5 Stars

Fleet Captain Nine Hibiscus is losing a way against an enemy they can't possibly understand With an alien armada lurking at the edges of Teixcalaani space, threatening the Empire, both Three Seagrass and Mahit Dzmare can't seem to keep away from another challenge that will change life everywhere. They are sent to initiate first-contact with aliens, utterly unprepared and severely threatened. Failing to find a way to communicate and negotiate will end millions of lives-but a success might secure eighty more years of peace for the Teixcalaani Empire.

This book took me entirely by surprise. I liked A Memory Called Empire but this novel is a literary masterpiece. Instead of merely following Mahit's path like in the first book, this time we get to see half a dozen of different characters and get to know their complex stories. Everyone poised with different conflicts and desires, yet trying to construct something that can vaguely be called peace. I was borderline bored by some of the POVs, yet this only managed to punch 0,25 stars from my review.

I fell in love with the portrayal of culture and memory in A Memory Called Empire. The way Teixcalaan is like the sun, enormous and unyielding and impossible to miss. Like plants growing everywhere, invading spaces and being incredibly hard to remove to the point where you sit back and think why this is actually a stunning piece of art, why do we need to get rid of it? And thus Mahit fights for two books, not only against the antagonists, but against a form of corruption for lack of a better word. She's at the bottom of the well called Texicalaani, yet fights to grapple the rope that ties her to her people, her Stationers.

Lastly I was not at ALL prepared for the emotional intensity of reading a first-contact scene with literal aliens. It had me on the edge of my seat, poised to flee, for it scared me with a primal sense of immensity. Just the thought of communicating with beings that are entirely un-understandable and seeing Mahit and Three Seagrass actually try to work out this unpredictable issue. It was genius. Blood and starlight, I LOVED every page of it. ...more "

progress:

(page 378 of 496)
— Mar 14, 2022 09:14AM

Mar 15, 2022 05:54AM · see review

Corin is currently reading

The Art and Making of Arcane

by Elisabeth Vincentelli

bookshelves: 2025, currently-reading

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Nov 19, 2025 01:56PM

Corin’s Quotes

“Was this, I wondered, what it felt like to be a grown-up? Did you always feel the weight of things on you, your cares pressing you down like a burden you could never shake? No wonder Peter could fly. He had no worries to weight him to the earth.”
― Christina Henry, Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook

79 likes

“It’s not such a wonderful thing, to be young,” I said. “It’s heartless, and selfish.”

“But, oh, so free,” Nod said sadly. “So free when you have no worries or cares.”
― Christina Henry, Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook

tags: captain-hook, free, growing-up, heartless, lost-boys, never-grow-up, no-worries, peter-pan, selfish, young

38 likes

“But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

tags: circe, constellations, daedalus, greek-mythology, love, stars

3672 likes

“Because Peter promised them adventures and happiness and then took them away to the island where they died. They weren’t forever young, unless dying when you were young kept you that way for always.”
― Christina Henry, Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook

tags: adventures, captain-hook, death, false-promises, forever-young, lost-boys, never-grow-up, peter-pan

27 likes

“About here, she thought, dabbling her fingers in the water, a ship had sunk, and she muttered, dreamily half asleep, how we perished, each alone.”
― Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

286 likes

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