The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth #1)

Okay, so, I ALMOST didnt use my credit for the month on this book. Some of the negative reviews were scathing, and I try not to pick up books unless they come recommended by people or sources I trust. This trilogy won THREE Hugo awards, (Ive never met a Hugo winner I didnt Love…) So I ignored the nay-sayers. THANK GOD! I havent enjoyed a book this much since the first time I read Dune. The sequels will be the first time I spend money for books beyond the free credits. Guys, this book is wonderful. The characters are beautiful, tragic, and desperately human. The setting is refreshingly new. The plot is… …you get the point. I hope you decide to ignore the negative reviews and give it a chance. Savor it. Take it slow, and PAY ATTENTION. The author is masterful in her storytelling. Thats the strongest review I can give, but I wish I could give more. -Steve

When I saw well over 12k positive reviews I figured I\’d give this book a shot. I tried to stick with it, but it is so crass, so poorly worded, and so unnecessarily gratuitous that I am returning it. I finally gave in when the narrator read a line which was something like, \”she had just finished her morning f**k\”. Seriously, how on earth does this book have that many positive reviews? It reads like it was written by a high-school sophomore who is trying to spice up their book by throwing in a lot of unnecessary vulgarities under the guise of artistic writing. What a giant waste of time.

First off, this book should come with a filthy content warning. I should have read more reviews before I bought this, but I didnt realize it would have so much of the story based on hate and sex. My biggest problem is I got halfway through and it has a part that describes a little boy getting teased by other children about getting sexually molested to get some alcohol. Then he basically get sent off to seclusion and what the author describes as his indirect punishment. Whats worse is its just left at that no real justice or anything to address the fact that you basically write in the worst possible scenario for seemingly no other reason then you want to make your readers feel like shit or pissed off. Theres also lots of child abuse, neglect, polygamy, filthy sex depictions etc… The whole time I was listing to this book it basically made me feel awful. Im mostly mad at myself for getting 3/4 of the way through with the book and not stopping it.

I have in fact, volunteered for four different WorldCons where the Hugo\’s are given. I tried so hard to like these books, but I just cannot. I understand the originality of how they\’re written and recognize that the author has a brilliant grasp on how to paint a picture with words, but I just don\’t like it. To quote a song by one of my favorite bands: \”Different isn\’t better, it\’s just different…\” Had I not purchased the first two books in this series together, I wouldn\’t have bought the second one. I certainly will not be buying the third. My thought after not really caring for the first was: Maybe the story will flush out in the second… Sadly no. Not for me.

I\’ll start with the good. This book has a really interesting magic system and has just enough mystery to keep you somewhat interested. The writing is quite solid too, though I find her style to be a bit annoying but that\’s a personal preference. The biggest flaw that this book has is that it is boring and that\’s quite a big sin for a book especially one in fantasy/sci-fi. It takes a good third to halfway through the book for anything interesting to happen and then it is sporadic thereafter. It was quite a struggle for me to finish this book and that\’s not something I want in a book I listen to for pleasure. I personally found most of the characters to be pretty flat and boring and they all seemed somewhat similar. I know this is against the popular opinion but I just didn\’t think the characterization was very good. I also thought the \”twist\” was pretty telegraphed and I had guessed it long before I was given confirmation. This book actually won the Hugo (and so did it\’s sequel) and I honestly can\’t understand why it was given such a prestigious award. It\’s an okay book, but I can\’t really recommend it to anyone that doesn\’t want to work really hard to push themselves to listen to it. My best guess for why it won the Hugo, and this is completely my personal opinion, is that it hits a lot of group identities. All the people in the book are black, it has gays, transgendered people, and a class of people that aren\’t treated much better than slaves. Some of this actually feels forced in my opinion, but it wouldn\’t be the first time an award was given for something because the voters agreed with the political views of the creator.

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