The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth, Book 2)

The Obelisk Gate
N.K. Jemisin, 2016

Hugo winner - 2017

Premise: sequel to The Fifth Season. Essun tries to figure out her next steps and we find out what happened to her daughter Nassun.

It's been a while since I read the first book in this series, so there was a period of adjustment while I remembered the characters and the world. I think this is a worthy successor, but not as undeniably brilliant as the first book was.

There are more shenanigans around narration (who is the voice of the text and why) in this book, which I found interesting, but not as interesting or emotionally compelling as the core narrative conceit in the first book. 

It's probably important to note that I also read the first book while I was pregnant but not yet a parent. The violent deaths of both of Essun's young sons are revisited in this book, and I found myself keeping more emotional distance from the characters for my own mental health.

This was a good read, but it does have a few flaws common to middle books - a bunch of new ideas were introduced but not (in my opinion) fully paid off and a lot of the action felt like the setup that moves characters to the emotional and physical places they need to be for the (presumable) climax in book three.

Again, still very good, just not amazing.

4 Stars - A Very Good Book


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