Reviews with content warning for Racial slurs - The Fifth Season

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The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

66 reviews

spellbindingtomes's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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emptzuu's review

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adventurous challenging dark slow-paced

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

3.0

N.K. Jemisin's "The Fifth Season" is a dystopian science fantasy novel, the first part of the Broken Earth trilogy. The story follows three women, all of whom are orogenes—individuals with the ability to control earthquakes and other geological forces. The main character, Essun, is searching for her missing daughter after her husband kills their son because of his powers. The novel also follows the stories of a girl named Damaya and a woman named Syenite. The fates of these three characters intertwine, and their stories are told in different narrative styles: Essun's story is written in the second person (you-narrator), while Damaya's and Syenite's stories are narrated in the third person (she-narrator).

The novel addresses climate change and humanity's vulnerability to natural forces. The events of the story take place in a post-apocalyptic world called the Stillness, where the climate is unpredictable and harsh. The term "fifth season" refers to various catastrophic natural phenomena, such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, which regularly destroy living conditions. These seasons can last for years or even centuries, bringing with them cold, famine, disease, and violence.

Cities and communities prepared for earthquakes reflect a world where survival is a central part of everyday life. The descriptions of the environment are impressive and bleak, full of the destruction caused by natural forces and the struggle to survive. This makes the world not only dangerous but also a terrifying and mysterious place, where every moment is a fight for survival.

In this world, Essun must confront her past and survive in an environment where people like her are persecuted. Essun is a middle-aged woman who has experienced a lot in her life. Her skin is dark, which is common in her world. Essun has a strong and muscular build, reflecting her physical strength and endurance. Her face is angular and expresses her seriousness and the heavy trials she has endured. She cuts her curly hair short, which is meaningful as it symbolizes the beginning of a new phase in her life.

Essun's character has been shaped by her harsh experiences. She is extremely resilient, even stone-cold, and accustomed to surviving in the most difficult situations. Essun is distrustful and cautious, which is due to both her orogenic abilities and the hostility of her environment. However, she also has deep love and concern, especially for her children, although this care often manifests as harshness. Her determination and ability to make tough decisions are essential for her survival and success in the world she lives in.

Damaya is a young girl who learns she is an orogene and is sent to be trained to control her powers. She is generally described as dirty and disheveled, due to her tough life situation, especially when she is taken away from home and transferred to a training center for orogenes called Fulcrum.

Damaya is intelligent, curious, and eager to learn. She has a deep need to belong to something and to gain acceptance, which is a natural consequence of her family's rejection of her because of her orogenic abilities. Damaya is also highly adaptable and flexible, as seen in how she handles new situations and threats at Fulcrum.

Damaya struggles with feelings of fear and anger, but she also has a strong survival instinct and the ability to adapt to her surroundings. She begins to understand her own power and gradually builds her own identity within the strict and often brutal environment of Fulcrum.

Syenite is a trained orogene sent on a mission with an older orogene. Syenite has dark skin, which is common in her world where many people are darker-skinned. She has thick, curly hair that is often described as rebellious and hard to manage, reflecting the strength of her character. Syenite is physically strong and sinewy, partly due to her training and life experiences as an orogene. She is also described as beautiful, although she often does not pay attention to her appearance because her life is focused on survival and her duties.

Syenite is a complex character with a strong will and determination. She is very aware of her power and abilities as an orogene, but this awareness conflicts with how others in society view her and those like her. Syenite is resilient and outspoken, unafraid to face adversity. She also harbors considerable anger and bitterness, stemming from how she and other orogenes have been treated by society. However, her character also possesses softness and the ability to love, which becomes apparent in her relationships with other characters.

She is also highly intelligent and capable of analyzing situations quickly. As the story progresses, her character develops as she begins to understand more about herself and the world around her.

The novel portrays a society where people are divided into different castes and races, some of which are in subordinate positions. In particular, orogenes, people who can control the movements of the Earth's crust, face severe oppression and discrimination. The story deals with how they try to survive and recover from the traumas they have experienced. These themes reflect real-world issues of racism, oppression, and marginalization.

The protagonist, Essun, struggles with accepting her abilities and identity. Through her story, the novel explores how surrounding society and circumstances shape a person's identity and life choices. Essun's quest to find and save her daughter after the disaster illustrates the importance of family and the difficulty of protecting loved ones in challenging conditions.

The Fifth Season is, in many ways, a highly skillful novel. It has a strong, assured narrative voice that carries bold and unconventional writing choices with style, including an entire plotline written in the second person. The characters and environments feel alive and real, with depth; the experiences and psyches of the main characters feel credible and well-researched. The novel is set in an interesting and original world that regularly experiences global catastrophes, seemingly blending fantasy and post-apocalyptic science fiction.

Themes of identity, gender, motherhood, belonging, community, and power are explored in many ways, challenging typical fantasy and sci-fi clichés. Jemisin creates voices in this novel that are unlike anything you may have read before in this genre.

However, her stylistic choices significantly disrupt the reading experience. At the beginning of the novel, the thoughts meander in many directions, but the prose remains monotonous. The text consists only of action scenes or occasional world-building. The simultaneous journeys of the three characters feel tedious, and after the fast-paced start, the novel begins to drag.

Jemisin's writing feels stiff, unemotional, and forced, trying so hard to be trendy and witty that the text ends up resembling more of a creative writing class essay than genuine prose. The text is full of italics and clichéd exclamations that come across as artificial attempts to evoke emotion. The reader is not trusted enough to make their own conclusions, with things being over-explained, which flattens the reading experience.

The plot does not bring significantly new elements. Oppression, trauma, and climate change have been addressed in many different ways before. Moreover, many of the plot twists were predictable in advance.

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lahars_little_library's review against another edition

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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

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midnightstory's review against another edition

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adventurous dark slow-paced

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

4.25

this was crazy and a lil boring at times but also so good

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zasobel's review

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adventurous mysterious tense fast-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? Yes

5.0

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dkamada's review

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adventurous dark funny inspiring mysterious fast-paced

Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

Loved having a two person book club for this with Meghan, so many good reveals!

Marked that there are moderate racial slurs, but it depends if you are looking to avoid specific racial slurs used in our world vs the concept of people using racial slurs if that makes sense. I.e. there are racial slurs specific to this book that are used frequently

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lua_'s review

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dark mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I read this book after seeing several people recomend it and hype it up, and I think my mistake was going in with too high expectations.

N.K. Jeminsin created an extremely interesting and complex wolrd, with a unique magic system and a pretty exciting premise, but despite all that, to me, the actual story felt completely bland.

My biggest issue with the book was the main characters, Damaya, Syen and Essun,

them being all the same person, you can see why all of them bothered me the same

so maybe if you like them more you might enjoy the book a little better. But to me it felt like, mainly Syen, was completely incapable of complex thought, she constantly avoids actually thinking about the problem beyond a surface level, to a point that it gets very frustrating,

the god damn volcano in Allia was SUCH an obvious trap, that I feel like after dealing with the guardians and the Fulcrum her whole life it was just so frustrating seeing her think "wow why would the fulcrum leave things like this" and then REFUSE TO THINK MORE ABOUT IT

there are several times in the novel that Syen's Pov says "she couldn't think" and it was just really frustrating. Essun at the very least has a very good reason to refuse thinking in the beginning of the book, but that also gets frustrating after a while. A few times it just felt like the main characters avoided thinking (not asking questions, not reaching conclusions, not making strategies) just so the plot could progress, wich to me made it fell like all three characters weren't active in their own storylines. The world building is very intense wich I do usually like, but in the book there just wasn't a storyline above it that made me actively exited to keep reading.

I do really like the conflicts and the depiction of the abusive and toxic relations between the Guardians and the orogenes in their charge, N.K. went above and beyond with it, and every scene with Damaya and her Guardian had me at the edge of my sit. The mystery of Hoa was also fun to try and figure out, and the dynamics between Syen and Alabaster felt deep and complex in the most interesting of ways

wich only makes Alabaster's state by the end of the book seem more like a waste of potential to me, I really liked him

for the first half of the book most of what happened with Damaya's storyline caught me by surprise, which made it very fun to read.

But at the end it just didn't feel like a lot actually happened during the book, very few moments during all three storylines felt exciting or had any action, so maybe if someone liked slower and less action packed books they might like this this lack of moments, but it just wasn't my cupof tea.

Also this book is VERY heavy on wolrd building and N.K. makes very little effort to explain it all, so I definitely don't recomend it for people who aren't used to lore heavy fantasy.

Overall, to me, it felt like a really interesting world with a very bland main character

The ending does get a little more intense, and leaves off at a cliffhanger, wich is mostly of the reason for me to give the book a 3,7 instead of 3,5. I think I'll read the rest of the series, but I'll definitely have to change my expectations and mindset before starting book two, so that I'm ready for a slow series of tragic happenings, rather then an intense character fighting her way trough events.

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sammymilfort's review

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challenging dark reflective sad tense 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? It's complicated

4.0

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lizziaha's review against another edition

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Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

I really love the way that N.K. Jemisin introduces characters. Like, we see each character at face value and then slowly uncover more about them. It feels more realistic than the way some other books do characterization. And it makes the characters feel so much more likable, even when they make questionable decisions. The world-building is done in the same way, which works really well for me. And the raw emotion of it all is really moving. I think that all apocalypse stories have a lot to say about grief, but as you see all three of the plotlines ultimately converge around it, it becomes so impactful.
I’m curious to see how the next book is structured! I’m not sure it even can be structured the same, but i’m interested to see how the differences will change the reading experience. I’m not always a fan of multi-pov but this one was so delicious that i fear nothing can top it.
also—don’t even get me started of the allegory of it all. masterful!!!

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language_loving_amateur's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Very good; it will certainly stay with me. It is a lot to handle, and I need a breather before the next book. But also so much happens, I kind of want a plot summary and a detailed character sheet. Very heavy.

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