Reviews with content warning for Xenophobia - Persephone Station

The first word that came to mind after I finished Persephone Station was ambitious. With more candor, I’d say overambitious. There was a lot packed into five hundred or so pages that, at multiple points, it was somewhat difficult to process everything. The content and universe themselves were interesting, and it was clear that Leicht put a lot of care into worldbuilding. The issue was there was a little too much for one book. (A little more on this in a moment.)

However, this isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy the novel. In fact, there was a lot that I liked. With all frankness, we can agree that it’s rare to find space opera that feature a diverse cast of characters. Well, look no further, because Leicht goes above and beyond to place nonwhite, queer, women, and/or nonbinary characters at the forefront. In addition, Leicht did an impressive job with worldbuilding, really taking the time to set the stage at the start of the novel. The details that went into Persephone Station is deserving of recognition, to say the least. (And just a side thing, but Leicht does a pretty great job writing fight/battle scenes, which I would say is something a lot of authors struggle with.)

Leicht’s worldbuilding and characters are a bit of a double-edged sword, though. While impressive, as I mentioned earlier, there was just too much. Leicht did well on the details, but she fell short on further developing them that it was harder to appreciate everything. In addition, with such a large cast of characters, it often got confusing to follow who was talking. While most of the characters had their unique quirks, it wasn’t enough to fully parse out who was speaking or develop any kind of attachment to these characters.

Plot-wise, it was very slow at the start. On one hand, I understood this was for worldbuilding purposes; on the other hand and, as I mentioned earlier, all the details started getting much. This, in turn, affected the plot (or, rather, plots). For the most part, you were able to follow the two plots, but it’s very clear that the book would have been far stronger if Leicht stuck with one of the two. At least to me, it seemed more apparent that she was interested in the colonialism plotline, but was reluctant to let go of the plotline about AI development.

There was a lot of promise in Persephone Station that I think fell short. For those who really enjoy worldbuilding, this book might be of interest to you. However, for those who are looking for a strong plotline and/or character development, you’ll be sorely disappointed. On a final note, I do think that this would have made for a better television adaptation as a limited series. It would certainly give a lot of room for Leicht to further develop her characters and plot as much of the describing wouldn’t be needed due to audiovisuals.

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melaniereadsbooks's review

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Thank you so much to the publisher and the author for an ARC of this amazing book debuting on January 5th!

Angel and her team have a very important mission--to save the Indigenous life forms on Persephone from the corporation that rules the planet. This book is an action packed space opera with a great cast of female and nonbinary characters and very interesting alien lifeforms!

There is so much amazing technology happening in this book and I love the bits about AGI and anything relating to The Emissaries.

The girl squad is top notch and I loved to read about their quirks and the way they worked together. Beautiful and heart wrenching!

Leicht is a great writer and I definitely want to read more by them in the future!

My only complaint is that I felt this could have been a little shorter, as a few sections in the middle kind of dragged. But overall this book was great!

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