Reviews

The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin

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rufio7's review against another edition

5.0

Solid finale to the trilogy - the backstory components did a nice job of filling in the gaps in world building. Fitting ending for the main characters as well.

obiterocelot's review

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adventurous emotional 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

4.25

Read if you love: complex characters, unique magic systems, the end of the world, shiny rocks, solar punk, detailed world building, science kinda, doomsday prepping, daddy issues, mummy issues, younger men, uncanny valley, the Horizon games.

Avoid if you love: happy families, happy endings, being a racist POS, people being nice to each other, the moon.
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From the beginning you get the sense that this is not going to be a happy ending. Which means you watch every decision made knowing it’s leading to something that’s going to hurt.
It’s an ending that will sit with you. And it feels sad, but it also feels a little hopeful. And I know I said it wasn’t a happy ending but hell no matter how it happened, I hope that I can go out in life having experienced as much love as Essun did.

samolineux's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional 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? Yes

5.0

joeillereads's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious 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? Yes

4.0

i’m honestly not quite sure how to rate this book so it’s quite likely that my rating could change in the future.

pros: i loved hoa and learning more about his backstory. the world building is beautiful as always. this book like the rest of the series touches on themes of motherhood, generational trauma, climate change, colonialism and racism in a profound way. i also loved the found family aspects from castrima. i thought the ending was very satisfying and it brought all the threads together.

cons: i just couldn’t connect with nassun and by extension schaffa, and that was half the book. i missed characters from the previous books, esp alabaster. i literally found myself trying to get through the nassun chapters as fast as possible so i could get back to essun, who really did not ever get the credit she deserved. i also wanted more reasoning for why hoa was so attached to essun… like im a fan of it but it was so underexplained. and the technical aspects once again could have done with being explained in a clearer way.

overall this is a very very good fantasy series and definitely worth the read. but i would say the best book in the series is the first one, and when expectations are set so high in book one, it is hard to live up to them. it was still a wild and enjoyable ride, and n k jemisin is a masterful writer.