The Fifth Season - N.K. Jemisin

⭐ 4.0/10

(Originally written by Joseph)

I'm sorry Beans, but I need to do this. Friendships are temporary, Weview is eternal. You understand.

This book has actually made me really think about what I look for in stories and why I connect with some and not others. This is one of the most celebrated fantasy novels of this decade, so I understand I'm in the minority. I really wanted to like this book. I read the whole thing waiting for it to click. But, simply put, I never connected with any of the characters in any meaningful way. It's not that I hated them. It's that I didn't care about them at all.

I think my main takeaway, for now, is that I need characters to be more likeable. Like Tyrion, Arya, Geralt or fantasy icon Anne of Green Gables, I need a little more humour, more life, more charm. After 50 pages, I asked Beans when the funny characters come. He told me this book is only serious. I should have stopped there. I'm not sure I'll ever enjoy such a book.

I think I've also come to realize I don't care at all about magic systems or, in a sense, world building. If that's supposed to be a main selling point, I'll pass. Not that those things are bad, but I don't prioritize it at all.

I made the point with Thrones, but can we also give a little more attention to how things sound? Objectively, can we all agree that "Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning" makes our brains much happier than "Binof Leadership Yumenes?" This author tries to sell off words such as Geneer (rock engineers) and Geomest (rock scientist). They use slang like rust! and earthfires! What is this, the Maze Runner?! Who likes this?! This is fantasy, where you can choose any word you want for things. They should at least sound nicer than real life.

One redeeming quality, I thought, was going to be the wiring style. It's starts off really fancy. But that kinda just tapers off into normal prose, and then the weird second-person and present-tense make this feel very fan-fic-y. Did not like.

So yeah, I'm trying to end off with a positive, but I honestly have nothing. I shouldn't have finished this book. This now goes alongside other "Little Sebastian" books for me like Dune or all of Sanderson's stuff. I guess my positive would just be, if you're reading this review, you might like this book because lots of other people do. But it's not for me.