I'd kinda rather lie and say I loved it

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm not trying to be difficult. Or contrary. I just didn't really like this book. I almost gave it 4 stars, because assigning 3 stars to a Hugo Award winner looks like you want a fight. I don't.

To be clear, right up front, this is a well written book, and I like the author. I'd like to meet her, and shake her hand, and ask for her to sign a copy of something. That would be an honor. But I didn't enjoy reading this particular book. The novel might be up your alley. If so, it may well be a 5-star favorite of yours. I hope it is. In fact, I hope other people like it much more than I did.

For me, this was just a downer, and I usually don't finish books that I feel that way about. Being entertained and feeling a bit of joy are, for me, more motivating purposes for reading than FOMO or "seeing what happens" or being surprised or any other more esoteric purposes others have. The novel is more dystopian than I thought it would be, and the tone is unrelentingly grim, pessimistic, misanthropic, and disheartening. So, not too fun, at least not for me. Nothing good happens anywhere in this land of despots. [Spoiler, sort of. Maybe skip a line or two.] Well, there is a moment of freedom and domestic bliss, but the foreshadowing doesn't let you enjoy it. You know, by then, what will happen/has happened. Almost everyone in the story is untrustworthy, unkind, and unhappy, taught from infancy to be practical to the point of ruthlessness. There are no heroes to root for; even the main character is only occasionally sympathetic. I cared what happened to her, enough to keep on, but I didn't ever want to meet her. I didn't like her, even though I wanted to.

A dark tone is, for me, more tolerable in those books where the main characters are fighting to change what's wrong in their world, or when I have the feeling, as the reader, that something can improve. There is perhaps a hint of that, at best, but that's not really what the story is about. The characters, instead, are moving about, or being carried about, or being pushed about, doing whatever is in front of them to do without much choice or self-direction. [Spoiler! Stop!] Until maybe the last page, there's no drive for anyone to create a better life, or solve a problem, or intentionally attack a main conflict, and all that does is point to book 2. [Still spoilering] The nearest to a recognizable goal is Essun chasing after her daughter, but that feels like a waste of emotional energy when you get to the end of the novel without any sign of the girl. Really, the book has a lot of movement, but without goals proper to the characters we're following. It is action without clear purpose. (In that way, this novel is more like literary fiction, where the plot is more about the sum total of the characters' life situation than linear action toward a goal.) That kind of vagueness about the plot or main conflict can work, of course, but it's just not for me. The why? in my head never quite gets answered, and I want it to be.

The literary consensus is that this is an awesome book. Smart people who like novels really liked this one. I'm not in the mainstream here. Make of that what you will.

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