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“I make friends with terribly interesting people with terribly complicated problems.” “How,” Mahit asked, amused despite herself, “did you get into the other half?”

Him being curious is how we used to get into half of the trouble we got into.” “He’ll tell you it’s out of his own curiosity, and he won’t even lie.

She’s terrified but she keeps digging anyway, even after numerous assassination attempts, and she gathers allies on the strength of her personality as well. She’s in so out of her depth, and she knows it, and the best she can do is, well, keep swimming. The sense of immersion in another culture was complete and absolutely entrancing, both for Mahit and for me. But once she’s there it’s clear that she doesn’t fit in and she never can, even for something as meaningless as composing throwaway poems about pool grout while drinking at a party. She’s loved Teixcalaanli literature since she was a teen, and she’s dreamed of even scoring high enough on the exams to apply to become a citizen. I adored Mahit and all her audacity, but most of all I loved how honest she was with herself. Be as Teixcalaanli as you can, and be as Lsel as you can, and-oh, fuck, breathe. Be a mirror when you meet a knife be a mirror when you meet a stone. Mahit is left scrambling to figure out what’s going wrong in the empire and how her predecessor’s death fits in, if it’s even related at all. Mahit barely has time to arrive at the heart of the empire before she’s saddled with a Teixcalaanli Information Ministry liaison, Three Seagrass, and then presented with the former ambassador’s corpse. Unfortunately, it’s fifteen years out of date and not exactly helpful as to what could possibly have happened to the old ambassador. When the Teixcalaanli empire suddenly demands a new ambassador from Lsel Station, Mahit is chosen and given the imago – a recording of a person’s memories and experiences – of her predecessor, Yskandr. It’s about how that language controls how we tell stories about ourselves and the world around us. It’s also a meditation on the meaning of empire from a person who is trying to keep her home from being swallowed by it while at the same time being entranced with its literature and language. It’s a twisty political intrigue, with an Aztec-influenced empire.

Content warnings: View Spoiler » violence and death (including minor character), sabotage, xenophobia, imprisonment « Hide Spoilerįrom the prologue, this book absolutely blew me away.