#essun's family

[dysfunctional-family-fight]

Round One

The Sohma Clan (Fruits Basket) VS Essun's family (The Broken Earth trilogy)

The Sohma Clan

Members: Akito, Shigure, Hatori, Ayame, Kureno, Ritsu, Isuzu, Kagura, Yuki, Kyo, Hatshuharu, Momiji, Hiro, Kisa (plus the wider family)

Propaganda:

They are bound together by a centuries-long curse that causes them to take the form of the animals of the chinese zodiac (plus cat), with one to represent God

Akito is the head of the family and thus God, and, fearing the others will leave them, mentally and physically abuses them to stop them from ever leaving or thinking they can leave

The above leads to a lot of other issues within the family

Kyo is ostracized from the rest as a way for the others to feel better about their own situations

More propaganda here

Essun's family

Members: Essun, Jija, Nassun, Uche

Propaganda:

"Essun is an orogene, who has powers to control the earth, and orogenes are horribly discriminated against, so she keeps this secret from Jija and when her kids inherit it she tries to hide that too, subjecting Nassun to abusive training to mask her powers and even breaking her hand because that's how she was taught when she was raised by an oppressive and bigoted authority. She tries to go gentler on Uche, but when he's three he accidentally reveals his powers and his father Jija beats him to death. Nassun, who always looked up to her father, discovers Jija and Uche's body, and manages to appeal to him enough with the love he's had for her despite Jija realizing she's an orogene too that he kidnaps her instead of kills her, but Nassun now has to pretend to be the innocent child she once was to stop him from killing her, while Jija convinces himself that she can be cured. So he travels with her and Nassun is forced to kill people to protect them and becomes convinced she has no choice to be the monster that everyone thinks she is. They find a training place to "cure" her, but they don't really do this. Nassun grows proud of her identity and one day says this, leading to him attacking her, so Nassun (who is like 10) kills him, while latching on to her instructor Schaffa as a parent, who genuinely cares for her but only because he is trying to make up for how he used to be one of the people who abused Essun, and he still has a tendency to randomly kill people." Note: edited for length, full submission here

[puffdenlilledragen]

sometimes I remember that I read the broken earth trilogy and then I cry

[sock-to-the-third]

Beware ground on loose rock. Beware hale strangers.

Beware sudden silence.

— Tablet One, ‘On Survival,’ verse three

.

Pg190 of Chapter 11, The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin

[bookcoversaroundtheworld]

The Fifth Season - Finland

This is the way the world ends. Again.

Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze -- the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization's bedrock for a thousand years -- collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman's vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.

Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She'll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.

[tbookblurbs]

The Obelisk Gate - N.K. Jemisin (Broken Earth #2)

4.75/5 - stunning characterization; raises the stakes in a great way; Nassun my sweet girl :(

Spoilers below!

Before I start waxing poetic about the mother-daughter relationship here, allow me my one gripe: I am still not enamored by the use of second-person POV here. I'm used to it in this novel here, but I find that it's keeping me from really connecting with Essun in the way that I did with Syen or Damaya. And its totally possible that may be the point! Essun is distant from herself, so by placing the reader in a position where we're in her head but not her ... it's clever really.

Okay, so maybe I'm coming around to it as a narrative device.

Anyway, on to the things I liked which is just about everything else! Starting off with our main character, I love that Essun doesn't get over anything ... like ever. She holds all of her hurt and grief and pride and rage close to her chest and plays at being calm and collected but she isn't! Essun is decisive and brutal and sickly-sentimental-sweet and I love everything about her. Especially her prolific mistakes and their associated guilt that weighs heavy on her chest.

Speaking of Essun's guilt, let's switch gears to talk about Nassun, AKA my new favorite character maybe ever. For one thing, it's so interesting to thing of her as a child who is neurodivergent in a slightly different way than her mother, such that they can never actually understand each other. Add on the layers of Syen/Damaya and their trauma to Essun and you have a perfect storm.

The mother-daughter relationship between Nassun and Essun is also just delicious to me. Because it's so tragic. How could Essun have done differently, being who she is? Having such trauma related to being found for orogeny? Simultaneously, Nassun has done nothing to deserve this! Nassun can't know this about Essun! To her, her mother is just harsh and cold and doesn't love her! I'm sick and ill about them, allow that to suffice.

As a final note, Schaffa's role in this story is so fascinating to me. I did let out a very from-the-chest screech of "No!" when Nassun is joined by him and remained worried for her throughout the book. Even as he's changed, I can't help but see him as the person that broke Damaya's hand, that resulted in the death of Syen's entire family and her whole little world. What a fantastic way to bring him back in and twist this dynamic even further

[rockislandadultreads]

Black History Month: Science Fiction 

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin 

This is the way the world ends. Again.

Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze - the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization's bedrock for a thousand years - collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman's vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.

Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She'll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.

This is the first volume of “The Broken Earth” series. 

Africa Risen edited by Sheree Renée Thomas

From an award-winning team of editors comes an anthology of thirty-two original stories showcasing the breadth of fantasy and science fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora.

A group of cabinet ministers query a supercomputer containing the minds of the country’s ancestors. A child robot on a dying planet uncovers signs of fragile new life. A descendent of a rain goddess inherits her grandmother’s ability to change her appearance - and perhaps the world.

Created in the legacy of the seminal, award-winning anthology series Dark Matter, Africa Risen celebrates the vibrancy, diversity, and reach of African and Afro-Diasporic SFF and reaffirms that Africa is not rising - it’s already here.

Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi 

Ella has a Thing. She sees a classmate grow up to become a caring nurse. A neighbor's son murdered in a drive-by shooting. Things that haven't happened yet. Kev, born while Los Angeles burned around them, wants to protect his sister from a power that could destroy her. But when Kev is incarcerated, Ella must decide what it means to watch her brother suffer while holding the ability to wreck cities in her hands.

Ella and Kev are both shockingly human and immeasurably powerful. Their childhoods are defined and destroyed by racism. Their futures might alter the world.

Rooted in the hope that can live in anger, Riot Baby is as much an intimate family story as a global dystopian narrative. It burns fearlessly toward revolution and has quietly devastating things to say about love, fury, and the black American experience.

Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

In a far future, post-nuclear-holocaust Africa, genocide plagues one region. The aggressors, the Nuru, have decided to follow the Great Book and exterminate the Okeke. But when the only surviving member of a slain Okeke village is brutally raped, she manages to escape, wandering farther into the desert. She gives birth to a baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand and instinctively knows that her daughter is different. She names her daughter Onyesonwu, which means "Who Fears Death?" in an ancient African tongue.

Reared under the tutelage of a mysterious and traditional shaman, Onyesonwu discovers her magical destiny - to end the genocide of her people. The journey to fulfill her destiny will force her to grapple with nature, tradition, history, true love, the spiritual mysteries of her culture - and eventually death itself.

This is the first volume in the “Who Fears Death” series. 

[lifblogs]

“‘Innon and I didn’t love you for nothing.’”

No, stop! I’m crying. This is part of a message Alabaster left for Essun. And he admits to loving her even though the main connector of their polycule was Innon. He loved her! Not romantic love since he wasn’t capable of that with anyone but men, but he loved her as a friend, as family. Even all those times he snapped at her and made things difficult. And speaking of Innon! The man they both loved who was brutally killed before Essun’s eyes. The polycule’s been broken for a decade and I’m still getting emotional about it.

[wutheringmights]

I finished reading the second book in the Broken Earth Trilogy: "The Obelisk Gate" by NK Jemisin. I am happy to report that after a general "meh" feeling with my reread of the first book, I am back onboard with this series.

My absolute favorite part of this book is the plotline about Essun and Schaffa. They were both wildly underused in the original, and pairing them up together is a stroke of genius. I was hesitant about Schaffa's memories being warped from the get-go, but Jemisin pulled it off perfectly.

And I can't even begin to brush on Essun's relationship with Jija and Nassun, because, wow. Jeminsin can write great character dramas and studies.

That being said, Nassun's plotline was... meh. Nassun is such a fascinating character, but her storyline doesn't do much to show off everything about her that is fascinating.

Really, my issue is that I never once felt as though the Castrima plotline had to happen. Nassun pauses her quest to find her daughter to help with comme, and it's just not interesting. Sure, there are reasons why she is there, but it mostly feels like we're here because we needed to pad out the plot for a bit.

And that continues to be my problem with this series. It shouldn't take 200 pages to answer the question that was the cliffhanger ending for the first book. Alabaster shouldn't have to spend five pages verbally summarizing events that could have warranted giving him his own perspective. The pacing is slow, and some of the ways the story is told is near baffling to me.

Which leads to my mixed feelings about the way this series handles perspective. In theory, I love how Jemisin plays with perspective and identity. So far, the first and second book have used perspective to further their thematic elements. But sometimes, the perspectives get in the way of the story.

Honestly, I feel as though the first and second book could have been combined into one. Would that ruin the themes of identity in the first book and the themes of family in the second? Sure, but it would serve to tighten the plot and leave little space for the blotted mess that is the Castrima arc.

As a side note, Jeminsin's prose irks me in a way I'm not sure how to articulate yet. It's not bad, but the neutral narration as a style that I'm not sure I like. I need to think about it more.

Overall, 4/5. I'll get to the next book before the end of the year, but I'm going to break to read a different one first.

[bookshelfmonkey]

queer books for pride month: day 9

The Broken Earth- N.K. Jemisin

Genre: Sci-fi LGBTQ+ Rep.: gay side character, polyamorous relationship, trans woman SC CW: Cannibalism (mentioned), child abuse (inc. sexual), death (inc. child, graphic), genocide, racism, rape, gore, physical abuse, hate crimes

Plot: The world is breaking apart, entering another fifth season— one of the apocalyptic phases of the earth that can last for years. In the midst of this, Essun's son has been murdered, and her daughter has been kidnapped, both crimes committed by her husband. As society starts to collapse, Essun must pursue the ruins of her family across this dangerous world.

Why I would recommend this series: This series is such an interesting blend of sci-fi and dystopian with deeply human stories underlying it all. I was always so engaged in the story, and N.K. Jemisin never let me down.

I'm recommending one queer book for each day of pride month (I am very behind). If you want me to recommend books from specific genres or with specific tropes/representation, please let me know :)

[bastardbenvolio]

hello and welcome to: i read this book months ago and i still have many thoughts. tonight’s rant is brought to you by: The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

This is one of my top 5 books of the year. i’m in love with this Jemisin’s storytelling. The plot twists were so well done. the world building was seamless and i love the magic system. i think the characters are so compelling.

Essun, an older orogene, who is going to tear apart the world to find her daughter, Nassun, after her husband murders their son and kidnaps their daughter. i love how her story is told in second person narration. i really enjoy the sort of found family aspects that come when she meets Hoa and Tonkee while searching for Nassun. Essun’s motherly rage is one of my favorite things about this book.

Demaya who is a child orogene who is taken by a guardian to the fulcrum and has such a horrifying plot line. the hand scene is vividly engrained into my brain and it took me a while to recover from that. Her storyline really reinforces that people are terrified of orogenes and that people will use that to justify doing absolutely heinous things to people they don’t deem human.

And last but not least, Syenite, a young orogene who grew up in the fulcrum. her story with alabaster and how she is essentially forced to have his kid in order to stay in the fulcrum and not get killed is terrifying. i really enjoyed her banter and dynamics with alabaster. i loved their enemies to besties storyline. I love Syenite’s struggle with how do i find a sense of self and a sense of being when i grew up in an institution that told me i’m not a human being and i’m inherently dangerous.

this story is one of the most compelling books i’ve ever read and i still think about it on almost a daily basis. its one of my books that i will take absolutely no criticisms on. i was skeptical about reading this since i heard absolutely nothing bad about it. every review that i had seen was 4 or 5 stars. usually when i see books that have been hyped up as much as this was for me, they end up being a bit of a let down. this book lived up to the hype and more. i will never stop reccomendkng this book and i plan on rereading it at least once a year.

i rated this book 5 stars.

[mybookhaven]

The Broken Earth Trilogy - N.K. Jemisin

Fantasy - SciFi - Post Apocalyptic

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This review will cover the three books of the Broken Earth trilogy at once since i've read them a while back and it's more of a complete story in my head than individual events.

I would put this series at the top of my favorite fantasy reads of all time. The magnificent world that N.K. Jemisin created within these books has captivated me, keeping me wondering months after reading them about the ingenious way Miss Jemisin used to blend all the intricate small details into a huge world of fascination.

Cover Design: Lauren Panepinto - Wendy Chan

The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, and one thing that I found absolutely brilliant is the inclusion of “post-apocalyptic” people in the story. See the thing with post-apocalyptic books they're usually not so far in the future where you see how drastic changes affect the humans living through them, or at least in the ones I've read so far. So, it was wonderful to get to experience all the small and big differences between what a human is (today) and what a human could become in the hands of forced evolution.

A planet built on instability and destruction. A mother with a past that's about to catch up to her. A world that is yet again ending.

Essun, our mother, comes home to the beat-up corpse of her son with her husband and daughter nowhere to be found. What was a meager yet peaceful life she created for herself by running and hiding from her dark past ends as suddenly as it began. We follow her journey after the remaining members of her family in a world slowly becoming uninhabitable. It was incredibly beautiful and painful to live through Essun in a world where hate for what is “different” is dictated by law. We meet various characters that fall on a very huge scale of morality. I felt my own definition of what is "righteous" shake by the actions of these characters. Every little detail was beautifully weaved within the events of the story that it just blew my mind away when i got to the last book and slowly started seeing all the pieces fall into place. The final scenes will forever stick with me. They were so beautifully written and delivered that i felt the intense fluctuations of emotions taking over me.

This is a Trilogy that left me speechless, and I cannot recommend it enough.       

@nkjemisin   

This review is kept as vague as possible to avoid spoilers 

[dysfunctional-family-fight]

Propaganda for Essun's Family

Spoilers for the Broken Earth Trilogy

CW: physical abuse, murder

"Essun is an orogene, who has powers to control the earth, and orogenes are horribly discriminated against and often victims of hate crimes, so she keeps this secret from Jija and when her kids inherit it she tries to hide that too to protect them, in particular subjecting Nassun to abusive training to mask her powers and even breaking her hand because that's how she was taught to do it when she herself was raised by an oppressive and bigoted authority that took her from her parents to make her "acceptable" to society, and she sees no other way. She tries to go gentler on Uche, but when he's three years old he accidentally reveals his powers and his father Jija beats him to death. Nassun (I think she is 8 years old at this point?), who always looked up to her father and thought his kindness was a relief from her mother, discovers Jija and Uche's body, and manages to inadvertantly appeal to him enough with the love he's had for her despite Jija realizing she's an orogene too that he kidnaps her instead of kills her, but Nassun quickly realizes that she now has to pretend to be the innocent endearing child she once was naturally in order to stop him from killing her, while Jija convinces himself that she's different from other orogenes and can be cured. So he travels with her for a long time during which Nassun is forced to kill people to protect them and becomes convinced she really is and has no choice to be the monster that everyone thinks she is. They find a training place to "cure" her, but they don't really do this and Nassun grows proud of her identity, and one day confronts him and says this, leading to him concluding there's no saving her and attacking her, so Nassun (who is like 10 at the time) kills him, while latching on to the person who trained her, Schaffa, as a parent, who genuinely cares for her but only because he is trying to make up for how he used to be one of the people who abused Essun with training tactics that she replicated on Nassun in the first place, and he still has a tendency to randomly kill people. Also she decides she wants to use the power of the obelisk gate to crash the moon into the earth and kill everyone so there will be no more suffering, which Schaffa helps her with as a way to "atone". Meanwhile Essun discovers everything that happened to Nassun and feels horrible that she's turned her into someone just like herself, and winds up confronting her so she can use the obelisk gate to stop the regular apocalyptic natural disasters happening on their planet, and I won't spoil the ending here."

[gudbooks]

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

Buy The Fifth Season here

"LET’S START WITH THE END of the world, why don’t we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things.

First, a personal ending. There is a thing she will think over and over in the days to come, as she imagines how her son died and tries to make sense of something so innately senseless. She will cover Uche’s broken little body with a blanket—except his face, because he is afraid of the dark—and she will sit beside it numb, and she will pay no attention to the world that is ending outside. The world has already ended within her, and neither ending is for the first time. She’s old hat at this by now.

What she thinks then, and thereafter, is: But he was free.

And it is her bitter, weary self that answers this almost question every time her bewildered, shocked self manages to produce it:

He wasn’t. Not really. But now he will be."

REVIEW

Book One of the Broken Earth series, The Fifth Season is a wonderfully rich, dystopian sci fi book with strong touches of fantasy from Black author N.K. Jemisin.

The world-building here is epic.Jemisin weaves a tale of three women protagonists struggling to survive in a world in which the natural world itself is an enemy.

They live on an unstable planet whose violent eruptions can only be controlled by people born with special magic called orogenes (see our three main characters).

Where they live, in the Stillness, rather than being considered saviors, orogenes are feared, shunned, killed or enslaved by the world's elites.

Toxic as their planet already is the people of the Stillness live in fear of a "fifth season" that might bring earthquakes and eruptions so severe that they will mean the end.

There are recognizable themes here - oppression, cultural conflict, racism, enslavement, environmental degradation, yet also love, hope, family and resilience.

"The Fifth Season" can be a hard read because it is heavy at times, drops you straight into the story and uses second person present tense throughout.

However, the story and compelling characters push you along as well as Jemison's prose which is clear and almost lyrical.

There may not be an instant click but the story that unfolds is worth waiting for. Most readers say their investment began and things began to coalesce for them fifty to eighty pages in.

While I'd class this as high or epic fantasy-sci-fi, unlike what we'd find in many books in this category, here we have queer characters, a well-drawn polyamorous relationship, "found families" and people of various races and genders. Black characters are centered -- refreshing as this tends to be a rarity in this genre.

Big ideas breathe in this novel.

Buy The Fifth Season here

BOOK BLURB

Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter.

Meanwhile, mighty Sanze -- the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization's bedrock for a thousand years -- collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman's vengeance.

And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.

Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night.

Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She'll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.

Buy The Fifth Season here

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

N.K. (Nora Keita) Jemisin, a Black American woman, lives and writes from Brooklyn, New York. She's a graduate of Tulane University and the University of Maryland.

Jemisin was the first author to win the prestigious (science fiction) Hugo Award for Best Novel in three consecutive years with the Broken Earth series of which this book is the first, as well as the first author to win for all three novels in a trilogy.

"But another thing I tried to touch on in the Broken Earth is that life in a hard world is never just the struggle. Life is family, blood and found. Life is those allies who prove themselves worthy by actions and not just talk. Life means celebrating every victory, no matter how small."

Quote from N.K. Jemisin from her Hugo Award acceptance speech for the Broken World trilogy

BY N.K. JEMISIN

The Broken World Trilogy

The City We Became (First book of the Great Cities Trilogy)

The Inheritance Trilogy

[olive-branch-witch-library]

The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin

Hello! I recently decided that I wanted this blog to be dedicated to anything literature/reading related. Be it fanfiction or actual books that I've read, if I have something to say about it, this is where I'll be posting it. So to kick this off, I wanted to start with my most recent read. There will be spoilers, but they will be clearly marked further down the post and will be under a cut <3

Content warnings: slavery, child slavery, explicit content, apocalyptic scenarios, cannibalism (mentioned), racism against people with magic, actual racism, child murder, one really creepy line, torture, gore

If any of those make you uncomfortable, please do not continue reading.

This is a high fantasy trilogy that takes place on a supercontinent known, ironically, as the Stillness. On this continent, the plate tectonics are incredibly sped up, so every so often there's these things called Seasons. Seasons are the blocking out of the sun for years on end due to ash (similar to how the Earth was after the end-Cretaceous extinction).

In the sky are these giant crystals called obelisks. There are 256 in total, but the only important ones in this story are the onyx, spinel, garnet, amethyst, topaz and sapphire.

In this world, there are 3 "species". 2 of these are humans, but the distinction between them is that orogenes have a special power to draw energy from the Earth's tectonically active areas, and "stills" are regular humans. There's also the Stone Eaters, who are essentially living statues. They're capable of moving through the Earth, have diamond bones/teeth, eat rocks, and are essentially immortal.

Orogenes are kept enslaved by humans, and due to prejudices are essentially only kept alive in order to quell the minor earthquakes throughout the continent. There are two places where orogenes are trained, the Fulcrum in the main city of Yumenes, and the Antarctic Fulcrum in the Antarctics.

Everything from here on out discusses key plot points, only read ahead if you are ok with spoilers

The first book, The Fifth Season, follows three main characters. Essun, Syenite, and Damaya.

Essun is a married middle-aged woman (around 42 at the beginning of this book) with two children. One day she finds the corpse of her son in her living room, her daughter and husband nowhere to be found. Her son was killed by his father for his orogenic powers, which he inherited from her.

Syenite is a woman who lives in the Fulcrum. She gets sent on a mission to the coast with ten-ringer orogene Alabaster, with whom she is also supposed to bear children to pass on their potent orogenic traits. He becomes her mentor, and eventual friend on their journey.

Damaya is a young child who was taken from her abusive family by the Guardian Schaffa to live in the Fulcrum. Guardians keep orogenes from hurting anyone else with their power. She spends the book learning more about her orogeny and beginning to uncover secrets kept for thousands of years.

All of these three characters are revealed to be the same person during different stages of life at the end of the book. Her end goal is also revealed - bring the moon back to earth.

In the second book, The Obelisk Gate, the story is told from the perspectives of Essun and her daughter, Nassun.

Essun comes across a community of stills and orogenes living in a geode called Castrima. In this book, Essun starts to learn more about orogeny, stone eaters, and what exactly causes the Seasons.

Nassun's sections are about her coming to terms with the fact that her dad is terrified of and hates her, and growing to accept her powers as not evil. She also forms a bond with Schaffa, who is left severely changed by something he did to prevent him from dying.

The Stone Sky is the third and final book in this trilogy, and follows Essun, Nassun, and stone eater called Hoa that Essun meets in the first book.

Essun is traveling with the remains of Castrima after being attacked. Her sections in the beginning are once again about life on the road during a Season, but eventually focus on finding out the specifics of what she is meant to do to end the Seasons for good.

Nassun's story is also about travel. She's leaving the community her father took her to with Schaffa, in order to open the Obelisk Gate and end the world. Nassun feels incredibly vengeful towards society because, in her mind, it's the reason her father was incapable of loving her. She changes her mind about what she wants to do a couple more times.

Hoa's sections are written in the first person, and detail his recollection of the events leading up to The Shattering, which was the first Season and the one that caused the most destruction.

Moving on to my personal opinions of this series... I absolutely adored it. I love high fantasy, and I'm a geology major in college right now so I really appreciated this mix of the two. I was so excited when I started reading and found out the magic system was called orogeny, since it's an actual geologic term that refers to a mountain building event (famous ones include the Himalayan orogeny, the Grenville orogeny, and the Acadian orogeny).

I thought the characters were really well written. I love Alabaster so much, and I just think everyone is incredibly fleshed out, and by the end of it I ended up liking Schaffa, who I hated in the first book.

The slavery and oppression storylines were really interesting to read about as well. The node maintainers in particular were horrifying when I understood exactly what they were.

The only thing I wasn't really a fan of was the relationship between Essun and Lerna in books 2 and 3, and that's just a personal preference of mine. When they get together, Essun is roughly 43 years old. Lerna is never given a canonical age, but was a child when Essun arrived in Tirimo in her early-mid 30s. I'm estimating him to be in his mid 20s when the trilogy starts, putting him in his late 20s when they get together. I'm not a huge fan of age gaps that big in that stage of life, but both parties consented and they aren't related, so it isn't that big of a deal.

Please heed the trigger warnings if you intend to read this, because it definitely isn't for everyone.

If you're still here, thank you for listening to my autistic ramblings and I hope you have a lovely day! <3

[bookcoversaroundtheworld]

The Fifth Season - Serbia

This is the way the world ends. Again.

Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze -- the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization's bedrock for a thousand years -- collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman's vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.

Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She'll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.

[night-dark-woods]

Okay this is the baru and now broken earth anon, I finished the series a couple days ago and have been processing it, what a ride, Nassun and Essun and Hoa and everything 😭

YEAH RIGHT ITS SO GOOD. ITS SO GOOD. just. an INCREDIBLY good and nuanced and compassionate take on trauma and family and AHHHHH its so good. everyone should read it.