A review by audbaum
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

adventurous emotional funny hopeful medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

The worldbuilding in this book is very interesting and, I think, rather well done. I never felt like there was an "info dump" section, which can sometimes be the case in stories set in worlds so different from our own. I think the way that the story is set up, following three different storylines, was well-done as I never found one of them the "boring storyline" where I just want to get back to the other one(s), which is sometimes the case when there are multiple stories happening simultaneously in a book. The author also did a fantastic job of slowly revealing the ways that the storylines are interconnected and how information from one reveals an important part of another. I also really liked the ways that the author looked at the idea of subjugating fellow people, and the combination of fear and anger towards those fellow people that can make this systemic problem possible. Another thing that I enjoyed in this book was the casual LGBT+ representation that is in this book. A trans woman, gay man, and bi man are all prominent characters in the novel.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Child abuse, Sexual content, Slavery, and Sexual violence

One group of people is, in effect, enslaved and their humanity is not recognized in order to justify their subjugation. The book does not support these ideas, but it includes them in order to make comments on them. For the sexual violence in this book, in the context of this group of subjugated people, it is heavily implied that certain people

must have sex with one another by mandate of their higher ups.