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1.) The Fifth Season ★★★★★

Buddy Read with Petrik ❤

I finished this book just after it won its Hugo award for the best novel of 2017. This and The Fifth Season are so deserving of the awards and praise they receive. These books leave me wordless, because there is no explaining how much of a meaningful impact these books have on the world, let alone the SFF community. All I can truly say is thank you to N.K. Jemisin for this world, these characters, and these important messages that continue to render me speechless.

I also finished this book the same night that white supremacists rallied at Charlottesville and spread their hate in my country. The country that says we are past racism. The country that is constantly telling us that we are the greatest and most forward-thinking country of all time. The country that’s passing this hatred and violence off as “free speech”.

“But if you stay, no part of this comm gets to decide that any part of this comm is expendable. No voting on who gets to be people.”

Literature does represent our real life. The Broken Earth trilogy makes us feel the things it does because it mimics our world today. It shows us the oppression unapologetically, and this oppression doesn’t just live in this SFF book, it’s in our world right now, even if you’re choosing to keep your eyes closed to it. This series is a masterpiece and I hope you read it, but I also hope you learn from it.

The Obelisk Gate picks up where The Fifth Season left off, where earth’s civilization is beginning to prepare for a new Season. What doesn’t kill them quickly, will starve them to death slowly. This book mostly follows Essun, one of the most powerful Orogene in existence, where she is trying to live in a new community in a rather strange location. She meets up with old friends who are now also a part of this community, but her thoughts never stray from her daughter that has been missing since the start of The Fifth Season. Essun is also met with new problems and dilemmas that are so much bigger than the community she is residing in.

This is one of the most immersive books I’ve ever read. The narrative of this book just forcefully will pull the reader into this broken world, regardless of if they want to or not. You can’t help all the connections you will feel and form subconsciously. You end up with this experience that just feels so real and so emotionally overwhelming. Plus, I read this with so many tears in my eyes constantly, because even though this earth is trying to kill everyone that inhabits it, it is still the humans that are the terrifying villains.

Also, this is the most beautifully crafted diverse cast I’ve ever read in any piece of literature. The representation is just on an entirely differently level. And I believe with my whole heart that every other author out there should aspire to seamlessly create their cast of characters like N.K. Jemisin.

On top of the amazing diversity and representation, as a woman, I really sympathize with the underlying theme of motherhood throughout this series. I do not currently have any children, but I’d one day like to, and this book just emphasizes that there is no word to describe the love a mother feels for her child/children. Like, this book is heartbreakingly beautiful, and this constant reminder of how it feels to lose a child is something I can’t put into words. I think that is every parents’ greatest fear and this book doesn’t shy away from that topic ever. The heart of this novel is oppression, but the soul of this novel is that there is nothing a parent wouldn’t do to protect their child.

“You serve a higher purpose, little one. Not any single man’s desire—not even mine. You were not made for such petty things.”

But this all being said, this book does feel like the second book in a series, and it feels like it’s leading up to what I’m sure will be a perfect ending in The Stone Sky. There wasn’t any filler so to speak, but the events very slowly unraveling to put the pieces in place so that everything makes sense. But please, don’t let that stop you from giving this once in a lifetime series a try. It truly is a masterpiece that deserves all the praise and hype that is bestowed upon it.

And speaking of The Stone Sky, I don’t think my body, heart, or soul is ready for this eventual reunion. Yet, I don’t think anything is going to stop me from devouring this book while I’m 35,000 feet in the air come this Tuesday!