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A review by readingwithmerb
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
4.0
The Fifth Season is the first instalment in the Hugo award winning fantasy trilogy, The Broken Earth. This introspective novel is based in a world that undergoes seasons, periods in time where natural disasters threaten to end humanity. Thus this world has been ordered in comms, separate groups of people that specialise in certain skills to help survive future seasons. There are also people called orogenes, who harness magical abilities to control nature and their surroundings. We follow three orogenes in this first book, a girl training to become a capable orogene, a young woman on a mission using her orogene abilities, and a mother trying to find her stolen daughter.
I can confidently say I enjoyed this book, especially the world building. This had a fascinating social landscape to navigate, even though there was a dark overtone. This book heavily covers motherhood, exploring the unbreakable bond between mother and child, and the pain it causes a mother to raise a child in a cruel and dangerous world. It took me some time to warm up to the characters, but once I got over halfway through and understood a pivotal aspect to them, well, I fell in love. I care very deeply for these characters and am very excited to see where this series goes from here on out. The only reason this is not a five star book is as that it took me a while to emotionally invested in the events, but I think moving forward I will be more impacted by events.
I can confidently say I enjoyed this book, especially the world building. This had a fascinating social landscape to navigate, even though there was a dark overtone. This book heavily covers motherhood, exploring the unbreakable bond between mother and child, and the pain it causes a mother to raise a child in a cruel and dangerous world. It took me some time to warm up to the characters, but once I got over halfway through and understood a pivotal aspect to them, well, I fell in love. I care very deeply for these characters and am very excited to see where this series goes from here on out. The only reason this is not a five star book is as that it took me a while to emotionally invested in the events, but I think moving forward I will be more impacted by events.