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4.4 AVERAGE
4.4 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
emotional
inspiring
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
"When we say that “the world has ended,” remember – it is usually a lie. The planet is just fine." - NK Jemisin
Now that is how you end an epic trilogy! The Stone Sky, like the previous two books in The Broken Earth series by N.K. Jemisin, was phenomenal. I loved the plot and the writing continued to be unlike anything I've ever read before. Such unique and unusual concepts! I found myself slightly confused by all the magic but it also didn't matter, the book is that good. I could easily infer the intended ideas in Jemisin's writing.
The climax was exciting, gripping, and led to a beautiful and satisfying conclusion. I enjoyed the characters and all their flaws. The world building is extensive and extremely interesting. I wanted to know more about this place Jemisin created. But I also really liked how she hinted at events and motives without being explicit in the description of them. I enjoyed figuring things out as I read.
This trilogy was truly a masterpiece in the sci-fi/fantasy genre and I understand now why all three won Hugo Awards. Well worth reading. I thoroughly enjoyed every page.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
The continuously changing narration was SO confusing. It was a bit weird in the first two books, but by this one it was on another level. It's all... I am you, you are me, they are we... I couldn't figure out which character I was learning more about so I had to constantly go back and reread parts. Also, I still couldn't understand how exactly orgenes were really created by the end.
An interesting conclusion with the various storylines weaving along. It felt a bit long and a bit confusing, but I don’t know what I would actually change! Perhaps I just wasn’t in the mood to read it (had the audio from Libby to co-read with), could be 4 stars.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
was i confused until like 50% through? yes. did i know the ending before it happened? also yes. who TF is coda, though?
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
(I will have to adjust my rating of the other two books in this trilogy after this. Reflecting on this series has made me like the later books less.)
In retrospect, I fear this wasn't for me. We lost the plot somewhere in the middle of the first book. I already started to doubt the direction where this was going when Syen got to Meov but this finale finally let me understand why.
It didn't feel organic. It's supposed to be character motivated. You're supposed to think that's the natural course this story would take. And yet it doesn't. The books take so much time to build up to single, impactful moments but forgets all the little one's that come in between.
Lerna's death especially felt underwhelming. Forgotten, because we had barely 40 pages left to resolve all of the conflicts so no time is spent on him. He just...vanishes. He's not needed anymore and seemingly no one cares because there is bigger fish to fry. You'd think Essun would have developed to let herself care for people a bit more after 3 books worth of story.
What makes this book so different from the first is that in the first, Essun is three different people but in the last, she has lost the essence of what she's supposed to be and I don't think that was the author's intend.
The same goes for the language used in all of the books, but it stood out to me especially in this one. This isn't written like fantasy either. There's words that do not feel like they belong here. "[...] the onyx [...] comes online." Really? How was this not caught in the editing? Was there no better expression? Why make the effort to introduce curses like "Rust" and "Rusting" if you end up writing "Fuck" most of the time anyway? At some point I started thinking that this was more of a barely edited first draft than anything else.
Another issue was the slip into what? Scifi? It becomes a mesh of that and fantasy, using magic as a stand in for Earth's resources to make a point about exploiting the environment and it just feels dull after setting up all those societal issues in the first book. After all, this story was about a mother, her daughter and society. And here, we take society out of the equation, we move on from the concept of "mere discrimination" to cosmic level threats.
We've seen the seeds of this in the first book, if only briefly and it's a shame to see that this actually was what grew from it. There were cool concept but the way they were but together felt sloppy and unfinished.
In retrospect, I fear this wasn't for me. We lost the plot somewhere in the middle of the first book. I already started to doubt the direction where this was going when Syen got to Meov but this finale finally let me understand why.
It didn't feel organic. It's supposed to be character motivated. You're supposed to think that's the natural course this story would take. And yet it doesn't. The books take so much time to build up to single, impactful moments but forgets all the little one's that come in between.
What makes this book so different from the first is that in the first, Essun is three different people but in the last, she has lost the essence of what she's supposed to be and I don't think that was the author's intend.
The same goes for the language used in all of the books, but it stood out to me especially in this one. This isn't written like fantasy either. There's words that do not feel like they belong here. "[...] the onyx [...] comes online." Really? How was this not caught in the editing? Was there no better expression? Why make the effort to introduce curses like "Rust" and "Rusting" if you end up writing "Fuck" most of the time anyway? At some point I started thinking that this was more of a barely edited first draft than anything else.
Another issue was the slip into what? Scifi? It becomes a mesh of that and fantasy, using magic as a stand in for Earth's resources to make a point about exploiting the environment and it just feels dull after setting up all those societal issues in the first book. After all, this story was about a mother, her daughter and society. And here, we take society out of the equation, we move on from the concept of "mere discrimination" to cosmic level threats.
We've seen the seeds of this in the first book, if only briefly and it's a shame to see that this actually was what grew from it. There were cool concept but the way they were but together felt sloppy and unfinished.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes