Very good. I'm always a bit leary of sequels, but this one does hold its own. 
 I liked seeing Breq's adjustment to ship life... not as she previously knew it. Her interactions with both the Ship and Kalr Five were very well done. In various environments, we're starting to see how Breq has developed into something not quite human, but still markedly removed from other ancillaries. 
 In another minor point, Seivarden's interactions with the human decades (view spoiler)[from instructing the Amaats to sing to how she is more comfortable when they act as ancillaries (hide spoiler)] is a great counterpoint to Breq. 
 Leckie spends a good deal of this novel on social aspects of the Radch. It's made abundently clear (at times, almost heavy-handedly so) that this is a high-context culture. That's something I appreciate. Could it have been handled more delicately? Perhaps, but I'm still intrigued. 
 And now... things that bugged me: 
 The gesture thing. I get that the Radchaai talk with their hands, but how ? What do these gestures look like? I would love to know, really I would. We get a glimpse of what the hand-talk looks like when Breq is talking to the Valskaayans, but I would have liked to see more. The way Leckie (doesn't) describe the gestures quickly becomes repetitive. 
 We have some repeated information from the first book, but it is a sequel, so I'll give that a pass. It's only weird when the two volumes are read in a close timeframe. 
 It really didn't feel much like a military vessel. Granted, most of the book is not strictly military in context, but it was a bit jarring. 
 I would have really liked to see further development of the relationship between Breq and Mercy of Kalr. Although they're in constant communication, I was never able to get a good sense of the Ship's personality. Given all the effort that went into explaining Breq past and present in the previous book, I found that disappointing.