The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin

The Fifth Season (Broken Earth Trilogy, #1)

by N. K. Jemisin

Winner of the 2016 Hugo Award for Best Novel
Book 1 in the double Hugo-Award-winning trilogy

*A New York Times Notable Book*
*Shortlisted for the World Fantasy, Nebula, Kitschies, Audie and Locus Awards*
*The inaugural Wired.com book club pick*

THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS . . . FOR THE LAST TIME.
IT STARTS WITH THE GREAT RED RIFT across the heart of the world, 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.

'Astounding' NPR
'Amazing' Ann Leckie
'Breaks uncharted ground' Library Journal
'Powerful' io9
'Elegiac, complex, and intriguing' Publishers Weekly
'Intricate and extraordinary' New York Times
'Brilliant' Washington Post

The Broken Earth trilogy is complete - beginning with The Fifth Season, continuing in The Obelisk Gate (Winner of the 2017 Hugo Award for Best Novel) and concluding with The Stone Sky (Shortlisted for the 2018 Hugo Award for Best Novel).

Reviewed by booksandcats on

4 of 5 stars

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It took me quite some time to get into the story. I didn't like the writing style at first and there were far too many characters for my taste at first. It made it really hard getting attached to any of them, to build up a connection and care about what happens to them. Additionally, it got confusing in the beginning with the timeline. When did what happen? This book made it really hard to make sense of the story at first.

I honestly just stuck around because first I don't like not finishing books, and second, the world Jemisin described sounded intriguing.

And I got a pleasant surprise, when it started to get so much better after the first third of the book. I got invested in the storyline and the characters, and even though the timeline was a bit difficult to figure out until almost the end, it started to come together.

The characters are very well built up and you can see amazing developement, it almost broke my heart every time you realized who they really were and that they were not going to get a happy ending

This review is very hard to write without giving away any spoilers, so I am going to leave it at this and just say, if you don't like the beginning, it is absolutely worth sticking through it! All in all, one of the best discoveries I have made this year.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 28 November, 2018: Finished reading
  • 28 November, 2018: Reviewed