by N.K. Jemisin

I'm trying to spread out the series I read so it is a testament to how good The Fifth Season is that I jumped into this immediately.

The dedication is "For those who have no choice but to prepare their children for the battlefield" and you feel that all the way through the book. The relationship between Essun and Nassun is so well developed on both sides. Clear-eyed in the pain caused eac hother but also the reasons for it. It always feels like it is reporting, rather than pleading any one character's case.

Nassun's relationship to Schaffa and to her father also have these moments where the mechanisms of abusive relationships are revealed. And again Nassun's feelings within that feel reported, not judged, but also not elided. Which ends up feeling very compassionate towards her. If things were elided that would suggest they were things to be ashamed of. There's moments in the descriptions of the relationships where I thinkfeel (without having experienced anything like that myself) "oh of course that's how that would work".

I like the development of the stone-eater lore too. They feel like a wild card in what is already an interesting ecology of Orogenes and "stills". I feel like maybe the build-up to the suggestion of what Alabaster actually wants is drawn out a little, but I'm glad it is eventually just revealed.