 Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book you've always avoided reading.
The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin. Trigger warnings for extreme violence and cruelty, including toward children. This category caused a lot of consternation on the Goodreads discussion boards. What qualifies as "always avoided reading"? Why would you then choose to read a book where that was the case? But I immediately knew it would be this book. I'd read and enjoyed Jemisin's Inheritance trilogy, and had heard great things about the Broken Earth trilogy, a triple Hugo winner that starts with this book. But I'd been warned: "This one will break your heart." The warning was entirely called for. This book is interesting and well written, but it is GRIM. It starts with a three-year-old being murdered by his father, and that's not even the worst thing that happens to a child in this book. As often happens in science fiction, some people are born with special powers, and they are feared and hated as a result, sometimes killed by their own families. Orogenes have power over earth and stone, including controlling earthquakes. The fear of them isn't entirely irrational: there are multiple instances throughout the books of orogene children accidentally killing people. An organization called the Fulcrum takes the children to teach them self-control, and assigns them guardians. There are definite hints that there is something sinister about the Fulcrum. And now, an unnatural disaster has hit, blotting out the sun with ash and leaving the world in danger of starvation. There are three narratives. Damaya is a child whose parents hand her over to the Fulcrum. Syenite is a Fulcrum-trained orogene, sent on a mission with a powerful man (and ordered to produce a baby with him). Essun is fortyish, and hid her orogene powers until her husband killed their son and fled with their daughter. Essun is referred to throughout the story as "you," and eventually we learn who's narrating her story to her, and what the connection is between the three characters. It's an ambitious series, with complex characters and world-building. But it absolutely will break your heart.
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