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A review by coralinejones
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
2.0
To start: My rating does not reflect N.K. Jemisin's writing ability in the slightest. It's clear she's incredible talented and has a unique voice within the sci-fi genre. I do believe her accolades are deserved and I'm sure the series gets better with each book. However, this wasn't for me.
I did enjoy some aspects of the story, I was fairly interested in the beginning and wanted to see how these puzzle pieces would unravel. But the second-person tense was getting under my nerves.
Ultimately, I think Jemisin's writing style just isn't one I enjoy. I truly tried slogging through the last half of the book and found my interest diminishing more and more as the chapters went on. This is so heartbreaking to me because I hare disliking books that are very well-loved and well-received, especially with my reading peers and reviewers whose opinions I trust highly. This series seems like one I would throughly enjoy. Genre books that delve into various politics, with characters of color, written by an author of color, with sophisticated writing and a bit of purple prose; I literally eat that shit upppp. But I truly don't care about the world she has built and the character(s) present in the story. I even went ahead and read spoilers just to make sense of what was being written.
I DNF'd at 75% percent which, in my opinion, is enough to gather an opinion on what I just read. I considered soft DNF-ing this just to come back and read the last half of the book, perhaps pick up the others in the series to make sense of what N.K. Jemisin is trying to say, what her intent was with writing these books, but I don't think I care enough to move forward.
Still recommend to anyone heavily interested in dystopian sci-fi and fantasy. I do think there's something to get out of this narrative but, as I said, it just wasn't for me specifically.
I did enjoy some aspects of the story, I was fairly interested in the beginning and wanted to see how these puzzle pieces would unravel. But the second-person tense was getting under my nerves.
Ultimately, I think Jemisin's writing style just isn't one I enjoy. I truly tried slogging through the last half of the book and found my interest diminishing more and more as the chapters went on. This is so heartbreaking to me because I hare disliking books that are very well-loved and well-received, especially with my reading peers and reviewers whose opinions I trust highly. This series seems like one I would throughly enjoy. Genre books that delve into various politics, with characters of color, written by an author of color, with sophisticated writing and a bit of purple prose; I literally eat that shit upppp. But I truly don't care about the world she has built and the character(s) present in the story. I even went ahead and read spoilers just to make sense of what was being written.
I DNF'd at 75% percent which, in my opinion, is enough to gather an opinion on what I just read. I considered soft DNF-ing this just to come back and read the last half of the book, perhaps pick up the others in the series to make sense of what N.K. Jemisin is trying to say, what her intent was with writing these books, but I don't think I care enough to move forward.
Still recommend to anyone heavily interested in dystopian sci-fi and fantasy. I do think there's something to get out of this narrative but, as I said, it just wasn't for me specifically.