Reviews with content warning for Violence - The Kingdom of Gods

This book is not a perfect end to the trilogy, and in that sense is it the best suit for this story. This is a series about the folly of gods and humanity and imperfection and mistakes and the beauty of it all—why would it end with a neat little bow? If you’ve gotten this far, you need little persuasion to continue reading, but Jemisin makes it worth your while with a character study that reveals multitudes about this lovely world she’s made.

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queenie_ofthe_void's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book is my least favorite of the trilogy, but that doesn't mean it still wasn't good. It was a fitting end for Sieh and everything he's longed for since he first fell in love with Yeine.

Coming to grips with mortality and the fickleness of humanity was heart wrenching. Every time Yeine, Naha, and eventually Tempa came to check on him wrecked me emotionally. Definitely had to take breaks.

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anxiousnachos's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense slow-paced

5.0

I love this series so much, it’s the kind of series I am immediately going to have to go search for fanfic for so I can inhale more content with these incredible characters. It was really fantastic to get more insight into Sieh’s character, I particularly love all his scenes with Itempas, they are truly wonderful and raw and painful. Their relationship is probably my favourite from the whole series, after Yeine/Naha. Brilliant series!

Content warnings: violence, blood, incest (kind of, among the gods), pedophilia (past, mentioned), child sexual abuse (past, mentioned), rape (past, mentioned), underage sex, suicidal ideation, burning to death

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reading_rainbow_with_chris's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

“The Kingdom of Gods” by N.K. Jemisin

The godling of mischief, tricks, and childhood befriends two siblings of the Arameri ruler. In doing so, he unfolds a course of events which will change the world. I cannot give much more of a teaser than that because so much of this world and narrative builds upon the first two books of the Inheritance Trilogy. I have loved the first two books of Jemisin’s trilogy and I do think the trilogy as a whole deserves a place among some of the best sci-fi/fantasy series out there. That said, this third book was my least favorite and it felt disappointing to end on. It was certainly a fine read and committed no cardinal sins for me as a reader, but it did feel like the narrative moved very slowly and it was hard to stay motivated to read. I also at times felt like the moving parts of this narrative didn’t quite fit together. I needed more interaction with the central antagonist in particular and there were so many elements of magic which did not make sense. The end of the novel did wrap up almost all of the loose ends, but it is hard to negate the feeling of being lost throughout the book. That said, the ending WAS beautiful and the final lines actually got me choked up. So ultimately this was a read that I liked, but I didn’t love because it felt like Jemisin didn’t hit the stride of the narrative until the last quarter of the book. The whole trilogy is worth a read; just be aware that it is a bit uneven.

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seanml's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I have finally reached the end of the journey. When starting the trilogy I did not anticipate its meandering plot, spotty worldbuilding, deux ex machinas, or plot twists that have no weight. For a series that involves a realm called the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, I was surprised to find that only a handful of these kingdoms came up. Now, the series isn’t terrible by any means; there are a good number of fun ideas. These are just vastly outnumbered by strange, meandering, underwhelming choices in plot. I’m sure this series resonates perfectly with some people, but I am not one of them.

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