A review by benjaminj1996
The Kingdom of Gods by N.K. Jemisin

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

The first third of this book was really intriguing and gripping, as was the final third - and the ending was phenomenal. Unfortunately, the middle third failed multiple times to sustain my interest. But the book as a whole was still great. 

 

It’s a very long book with a lot going on - most of this feels planned and tied up beautifully in the end, however there are some moments in the middle that feel a little bit strange and perhaps unnecessary. Another problem I had was that the pacing is very inconsistent - perhaps necessarily so due to the nature of the plot. But sometimes there is a time jump within one paragraph of multiple years - other times there are very slow moments with lots of ideas. This is fine, but slightly disconcerting at times. 

 

But the book is nothing if not ambitious - every single book in this series has massively built on the previous one to form an epic narrative with some great and thoughtful themes. In this one the levels of depth are probably more than I could get my head around. I suppose this might be why I didn’t quite resonate as well with some parts in the middle. 

 

Overall though, and especially considering the ending, there are genius levels of writing at play here