I give up on writing an intelligent, thoughtful review of this book. It has defeated me for almost two months, and I now take this opportunity to concede. Perhaps eventually I will be able to write coherently and usefully about this series, but for now, I will say that she stuck the landing, she stuck it good, and I will most certainly be revisiting the series as a whole in the future.
For now, I will say that I was happy with the ending because it did what I like my endings to do. It didn’t wrap everything up in a tidy little bow, but it did deliver closure mixed with a healthy dose of ambiguity. It closed off character arcs and gave them resolution. It continues to be a well-told story with exciting twists and reveals, complex characters, and a backbone made of exploration of the ways that people with power wanting to maintain that power do so at the expense of others, of systemic oppression, in other words.
Also, the Earth is literally an antagonist, so that’s awesome.
Oh, also I wanted to talk about the second person narrator (which is featured about half the time). I normally hate second person. I find it pretentious and distracting, and if it’s used, there needs to a reason, and it needs to be done well. I’m happy to say that there is, and it was. If you’re one of those people who gave up on it early in the game because of the narrator, or because it was confusing or disorienting, I urge you to pick it back up again. The payoff is worth it.
Just a really good fantasy series, doing really exciting things the genre hasn’t seen before. Can’t wait to see what Jemisin writes next.
