Bingo Square: Award Winner It’s kind of convenient when every novel in a trilogy is an award winner since it means I can keep reading the series and fill multiple squares without taking a break from Bingo! There are going to be a quite a few big spoilers for the first novel in this one since it would be a bit difficult to discuss this one too much without revealing some major plots point, and twists and turns from the earlier novel. So you know, […]
There’s more than one way to be human
A year ago at this time, in the wake of our devastating presidential election, I reviewed Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me and James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, two treatises on racism and oppression in America. As I read N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth Trilogy, it occurred to me that her novels present a perfect fictional account of the same topic. These Hugo-Award-winning stories take place in a world where racial difference leads to oppression, exploitation, and genocide. As a result of this […]
The Obelisks are so much cooler than previously thought!
Oh my goodness gang! Ms. Jemisin knocks it out of the park yet again. You know how in a lot of trilogies you assume the second book is just filler, getting everyone in place for the final act so you don’t really read it as closely? Yeah, that doesn’t happen here. This one is just as good, and arguably better than The Fifth Season. Spoilers abound below folks. Go read both first. I’ll wait, and then we can all wait impatiently for the final installment […]
why is nk jemisin so good at words?
Okay, need the third book now, so there’s that. This second book was still really good, but it didn’t feel as revelatory as the first one did. I mean, that was inevitable. (Oh, boy, though nothing like a first book in a series that smacks you upside your head.) Still, this is a great second book. Second books are hard. They’re not as fun as first books, because beginnings are wonderful, but they still have to be interesting and matter without giving too much away […]