The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemison
This is the way the world ends. Again.
Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze — the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization’s bedrock for a thousand years — collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman’s vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.
Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She’ll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.
My reading pace these days is still on a slower than normal path….and me writing reviews for the books I finish is EVEN SLOWER.🤦♀️
Most of my free reading time is now consumed with studying for my national Personal Training certification test that is happening sometime later this spring.
I am TERRIBLE at teaching myself and home study is the actual WORST.
Anywho….
I finished this read a couple weeks ago and seriously almost forgot all the things I wanted to say about it.
Sigh. It’s like my brain has limited capacity right now.
So I’m just gonna do my best to remember all the thoughts I had swirling around but I KNOW I’ll be leaving something out! I’ll come back and edit if things come back to me even after this is posted.
This is the second book I have read by N.K. Jemisin…. I completely became a fan when I read “The City We Became” (and I CAN NOT WAIT for the next book in that series to come out!!)
I didn’t love the story in this book as much as I did with that one–but I did love her writing and creativity this go round JUST AS MUCH.
She is a mind blowing literary GENIUS in the sci fi/fantasy genre. The way she writes is so innovative, so original, so interesting and so captivating.
Like all good sci-fi books, it took me a few chapters to understand what was happening…I’m not sure why, but I am always lost for awhile when I get going in the fictional sci-fi worlds…I think it takes me a tad longer than most to start truly following the story 😆
But once I do, I’m sucked in and fully immersed.
In all honesty, even when I DID understand what was going on, I still remained a little confused most of the book….but it was in the very best “What in the actual EFF is going on here?!?” kind of way.
Apparently in the print version of this book there are two massive glossaries in the back explaining all the made up words and facets of this fictional world. That would have been HELPFUL AS HELL for me 😆 (I recommend reading the print version if you too have similar brain power as me…listening to it was fun, but it only contributed to my befuddled state.)
This story is told from multiple point of views….which I *thought* was separate stories at first…UNTIL I began to realize the ways they were connected…that’s all I’m saying about that because this is a HUGE surprise piece of the plot I do not wanna spoil AT ALL.
This dystopian novel takes place in a future Earth, where all the continents have smashed back together again. The world has to deal with very intense plate tectonic shifts that result in dangerous weather patterns and pretty much full on regular apocalypses.
There are LOTS of metaphors used regarding classism, gender roles, prejudices, and intentionally “forgotten” history.
How human beings treat the Earth and how we treat each other is deeply examined…..and when we do not do these things with love and care and intention what detrimental things can happen.
This story is about science and magic and humanity and nature….and what happens–good AND bad–when they all intermingle.
This is not an uplifting book and is quite heavy and serious most of the time….but there ARE beautiful moments sprinkled throughout and your brain definitely gets quite the workout too.
This is the first book in a series and it is DEFINITELY not a stand alone story as you will see by the ending.
I think I will check out the other books eventually–I’m intrigued to see where the story goes from here–but I think I need a break from sci fi for a sec.