A review by chrissie_whitley
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

5.0

Brilliantly complex and layered, The Fifth Season had me on a long leash and steadily pulled me in for the entire book. This was my introduction to [a:N.K. Jemisin|2917917|N.K. Jemisin|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1438215930p2/2917917.jpg], and I am completely taken in. The history she created was richly detailed, immersive, and stunningly human. Her characters were so cemented in their settings and individual storylines, surrounded by equally brilliant secondary and tertiary characters, that I both longed for and resisted the time in which the three main narratives would converge.

Essun, Syenite, and Damaya all serve as narrators for the three points-of-view that construct the majority of The Fifth Season. Essun starts off the story with a heartbreaking introduction with the discovery of the murder of her nearly three year old son—by the hands of her husband, his father. Essun is an orogene, as was her son—which cost him his life—as well as her daughter. Essun makes the quick decision to leave town in order to try and catch up with her husband who has fled town with their older daughter. It's distressing and painful—all compounded by the choice of Jemisin to deliver Essun's story by way of second-person, present tense narration.

After completing the book, I am utterly sold on this decision and can think of no other way to really submerge your consciousness as the reader beneath and into the full awareness of Essun and her story. It is author trickery at its bravest, finest, and most manipulative. As the reader, being directly addressed as "you" throughout the book, whenever Essun's travels come back around to the foreground of the novel, you are plunged swiftly and shrewdly into the role of a main character.

In this world, the magical element and innate ability is known as orogeny. Orogenes are skilled of varying degrees and capable of being trained to a certain extent. The power centers on the ability to directly influence stone and the earth. Using this power to quell earthquakes, of which there are plenty in this world, is something specifically the orogenes are trained to do and something that comes naturally to them. But there is so much more to them than that.

Syenite has a forceful and punchy introduction, and I loved this—the way in which she was introduced totally fits her personality. She's a young woman who has trained at a place called the Fulcrum. The Fulcrum issues rings (for the fingers) as an indication of rank. Having earned four rings, an impressive feat for such a young woman, Syenite has been instructed to breed with a ten-ring man. She's forthright—a blunt-force trauma of a woman.

Damaya is a young girl, recently discovered to be an orogene. She is being taken to the Fulcrum by a man who is to be her mentor, a Guardian. Her parents turned her in, and we follow her struggles and abandonment by everyone she has known, as she learns to adapt in this new environment. She's sensitive and scared, but you can tell she has the potential to grow into a tough young woman, if she can just adjust to this new life of constant training.

Damaya and Syenite, whose stories are delivered in a more traditional, third-person route, still land solidly and firmly within their respective sections. There isn't one single character who felt flat, one-dimensional, or false. Jemisin's vivid imagery and deft ability to communicate in a beautiful style while never veering off into fluffy passages or information dumps.

So fast and so immense is my fascination for this book, that I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I actually began it a while back and struggled with the second-person, present tense narration that opens the story with Essun. I was probably adversely affected by whatever I had just read before that, and it was too difficult to get into for me at that time. However, I kept drifting back to this series and wanted to give it another try, so I opted for the audiobook version this time. I am both so incredibly glad I did, and sad I didn't go for the printed version. I loved the audiobook narrator, [a:Robin Miles|158074|Robin Miles|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png], and am awed by her performance. But, as with many times I choose an audiobook of fantasy or sci-fi, I also sort of regret not reading it because you lose something in not seeing all the maps, unique words, or names written out.

This is an extraordinary book and I'm so glad I came back to it. To have so much casual diversity—races, genders, orientations, extended households, complex relationships...all treated with the nonchalance and understanding it should be (including being applauded for individuality)—is a wonderful thing. Oh, yeah...and the world is coming to an end.

Audiobook, the [a:Robin Miles|158074|Robin Miles|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] narration: Robin Miles was as perfect as an audiobook performance can be. Her pace and tone were suitably casual for the majority of the book—no overacting or questionable interpretations here. The subtlety injected into segments that needed more emphasis or emotion were solidly delivered. Miles had the pitch and timing just right, and I couldn't have been more enthralled with this story and the voices she gave to each character.