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Title: The Fifth Season
Author: NK Jemisin
Genre: Fantasy
Alright, I feel like I might be about to lose some readers with this post. I apologize in advance, but I think this book cemented what I kind of already knew about myself. More on that in a minute.
The Fifth Season follows the stories of three women: Essun, Damaya, and Syenite. Essun is a secret orogene–someone who can tap into the earth and control it. When we meet her, her husband has just killed their three year old son after the boy caused a disturbance with the powers the dad didn’t know he had. Essun sets out to find her husband, who has taken their daughter. Damaya is a young orogene. When her parents figure out what she is, they send her to the Fulcrum, where orogenes are trained to control their powers. Syenite is one of these trained orogenes, and we join her as she is being sent on a mission with the most powerful of orogenes. The mission is two-pronged: Syenite is tasked with removing a coral blockage from a coastal town, and along the way, she is supposed to become pregnant with her partner’s child, increasing the likelihood of said child also having powers. There are some major twists and turns in this one so that’s all I’m going to say about plot, just trust me that there are moments that will surprise you.
Okay. So I KNOW Jemisin is one of the most revered fantasy writers of our time. And honestly, this book is beautifully written. It is compelling and unique and everything twists together to tell a brilliant story. Nine times out of ten, if I don’t like a book it’s because I don’t like how it’s written, but this is one of those odd times. I didn’t like it, but not because of anything wrong with the book itself. I just didn’t enjoy reading it. And I think I’ve mostly figured out why:
The world-building is intense. There are a lot of new words and places and terms and it took me a while to keep everything straight in my head, which always makes it a little bit hard to really fall into a story for me. A large chunk of the book is written in second person (“you”), which is just a personal pet peeve of mine, so again, it took me out of the book. The other thing that I didn’t love was the lack of love. There’s no real love story in the book (which is obviously fine, it’s just not my favorite) and that kind of bummed me out. I think I gravitate toward romance and YA fantasy because it has the love elements I’m looking for. I need to have some kissing in my books these days or they just don’t grab me.
Normally I give book ratings based on my own personal feelings and enjoyment, but I can’t do that with this book. It’s so well done, it deserves a rating based on its merits, and not my own personal weird rules of fantasy. If you enjoy fantasy, obviously you’re going to love this book. It’s just a genre that isn’t really for me personally.
Overall Rating: 4.5 stars
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