Book Review: The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth #1) by N.K. Jeminsin

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Publisher:  Orbit

Summary:   This is the way the world ends...for the last time.

A season of endings has begun. 

It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. 

It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. 

It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester. 

This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.



When a story begins with the murder of a toddler by its parent, you know you're in for a grim read. This delivered on the grim several times over. I don't know if I enjoyed or endured this one.

For the main of the story, I was as confused as the characters about what was happening and why. Still, I was compelled to carry on because the world was very interesting. I was equally interested in the threads of Essun, Damaya and Syenite as this I got to know this ever changing landscape. There's a big twist of convergence at the end that would usually prompt me to go and get the second book immediately but I was so worn down by all the darkness that I'm going to wait a bit before reading the next one. But that twist was good. The way this one ends makes me think that there will be a ton of answers in the next and a lot of this first book was setting the stage. I've got to go on if for no other reason that the chance to find out the answers to the obelisks in the sky.

Definitely recommended for fantasy fans. I'm more of a science fiction girl so this was a bit outside my usual book backyard and while I didn't love it, I did like certain aspects of it.


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