Review: The Fifth Season
The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin| ISBN: 0316229296 | Pages: 468 |
Publication Date: August 4, 2015 | Source: Library
| Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars |
★★★★☆
THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS... FOR THE LAST TIME.A season of endings has begun.
It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun.
It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter.
It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester.
This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.
It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun.
It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter.
It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester.
This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.
I have wanted to read The Fifth Season for forever and I'll never know why I didn't pick it up until now. NK Jemisin is honestly such a refreshing voice in fantasy and her stories never fail to disappoint. From the epic world building to dynamic characters, The Fifth Season has everything in it that will completely blow your mind away.
The story follows three different points of views: a young untrained orgene, Damaya, on the start of her journey to the Fulcrum to be trained, a four-ringed orgene, Syenite, who has been assigned a mission with the only ten-ringer in the Fulcrum, and a mother, Essun, on the journey of revenge for her murdered son.
“Neither myths nor mysteries can hold a candle to the most infinitesimal spark of hope.”
One of the things I have always loved about NK Jemisin's novels is her ability to make the reader directly part of the story. For The Fifth Season, the reader is told at the start that he or she will be playing the role of Essun and throughout the novel, she refers to Essun as "you," talking directly to the reader.
Some parts of the novel felts a bit lagging, I won't lie, but there was this overarching intrigue that kept me reading. I believe that different point of views also helped because it offered both a break if one story line was dragging or it made you frustrated because something good was just happening and you need to keep reading to get back to that particular story line.
“Home is what you take with you, not what you leave behind.”
The story follows three different points of views: a young untrained orgene, Damaya, on the start of her journey to the Fulcrum to be trained, a four-ringed orgene, Syenite, who has been assigned a mission with the only ten-ringer in the Fulcrum, and a mother, Essun, on the journey of revenge for her murdered son.
“Neither myths nor mysteries can hold a candle to the most infinitesimal spark of hope.”
One of the things I have always loved about NK Jemisin's novels is her ability to make the reader directly part of the story. For The Fifth Season, the reader is told at the start that he or she will be playing the role of Essun and throughout the novel, she refers to Essun as "you," talking directly to the reader.
Some parts of the novel felts a bit lagging, I won't lie, but there was this overarching intrigue that kept me reading. I believe that different point of views also helped because it offered both a break if one story line was dragging or it made you frustrated because something good was just happening and you need to keep reading to get back to that particular story line.
“Home is what you take with you, not what you leave behind.”
Like I mentioned before, the world building in this novel is fantastic! The story takes place in a world that is broken into Seasons. A Season is a time period where the world temporarily ends, where ash falls from the sky, and those not strong enough will die. Civilizations have been destroyed because of a Season and it isn't until the Sanzed tradition was established that a form of stability was achieved.
There's so much history that is slowly revealed with the end of each chapter - quotes from ancient texts and stories that are told. In addition to the world, the whole idea behind orogeny is completely fascinating. The ability to sess the earth's movements and control it, but also the repercussions that come with exerting oneself which puts a limit on one's abilities.
“Nothing to do but follow your crazy.”
Everything in this novel just overflows with lore and intrigue that just compels you to keep reading. I absolutely loved how everything wrapped up and how the different stories eventually intertwined with each other. The Fifth Season blew my expectations out of the water and I'm unbelievably excited to continue with the rest of the trilogy.
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