The Fifth Season: The Broken Earth, Book 1
By N.K. Jemisin
Why this book?
If you haven’t read the first book in N.K. Jemisen’s highly acclaimed Broken Earth trilogy yet, you’re in for one hell of a treat. The first book I’ve picked up in a long time that engaged me to this degree, Jemisen’s world-building is stellar, unique, and most importantly, she crafts a fantasy landscape largely devoid of your typical Western kingdom-and-its-merry-knights tropes. Unapologetically full of direct metaphors on issues of race and gender, this book is destabilizing in the best way—queer, feminist, and magical, literally—featuring an original, complex magic system rooted in nature and matriarchal power. Plus, the way the narrative is written trusts the intelligence of its reader and keeps you guessing.
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