GENRE: Dystopian, Post-Apocalyptic
WHY SHE CHOSE IT: As a fan of post-apocalyptic stories, how could I not dive head first into a story whose first sentence of the synopsis starts with, "This is the way the world ends…for the last time"?
Trilogies can often be iffy with the first book being AMAZING, the second okay (but a let down nevertheless), and the third being "meh". But rest assured, since all three of these books won a Hugo Award for Fiction in the year they were published, you will not be disappointed.
Jemisin is the first African American author to win the Hugo in Fiction, the first writer to win three years in a row, AND the first writer to win for all three books in a trilogy. Also, the third book, "The Stone Sky", also won the 2017 Nebula Award for Best Novel.
I can't tell you much about the second and third books as it will spoil the first book so let me say, this is one of those series where I wish I could re-read it without knowing what I know now.
THE SYNOPSIS: This is the way the world ends. Again.
Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze -- the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization's bedrock for a thousand years -- collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman's vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.
Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She'll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.
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