Yep. This is it. This is all I want in a fantasy book. 

Jemisin had me in her brilliant clutches from the very first page. I felt like I was a little kid again, reading under the covers throughout the night with a frenetic desire to devour this story. 

The Fifth Season takes place in a world deeply impacted by ecological disasters: seismic events that threaten the survival of humanity. The earth is deeply unstable; all live in fear of a land that they believe despises them and the reckoning of the next ‘Fifth Season’, which could be anything from acid rain to years of ash-covered skies. A group of people known as orogenes have unique manipulative earth powers – and they are both needed and feared by larger society. Orogenes help keep people safe, but their powers can be destructive as well. They are hated, murdered, and ultimately controlled (& exploited) at the Fulcrum, a brutal training school within the city of Yumenes.

We follow three POVs: a woman whose husband murdered their toddler (for displaying orogene powers) and kidnapped their older daughter, an orogene child whose terrified family has sent her off to the Fulcrum, and a woman in service to the Fulcrum who has just been assigned to ‘breed’ with a more powerful orogene in order to produce another servant. 

Jemisin masterfully builds a world with fully-developed main and side characters. You feel their desires, their grief, their fury. Each narration is deeply compelling (and there are scenes from each segment that will haunt me) - and one is actually told in second person POV.

And contained and explored within a brilliant plot - systemic racism & oppression, subjugation & slavery, finding love and self in a world where you are ‘othered’ and inferior.

This is something new - but familiar enough to recognize yourself inside of it. It’s fiercely clever and original and addictive. Jemisin is a master mythologist. 

CW: child abuse, child death, murder, slavery, genocide, grief, physical & emotional abuse, racism & (fantasy) slurs, torture, forced institutionalization, body horror, gore, xenophobia, bullying, rape, classism, animal death, pregnancy, kidnapping, pedophilia, colonization, suicidal thoughts, cannibalism, vomit, excrement, fire, sexism, transphobia, sexual content

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