The Obelisk Gate by NK Jemisin (The Broken Earth: Book 2)

10/10

Gods! I’m still reeling and craving and just in a... stupor (more like a coma). Daze. I’m still just thinking up more adjectives.

Aah seriously!!

So I just read The Obelisk Gate today or more like just finished it an hour ago (right before dinner), it’s still fresh in my mind (too much so). I’ve been waiting quite some time for it, since I read The Fifth Season, but I’ve kind of been dreading it too. I loved The Fifth Season – the complexity of its characters, the world building, the concept. Even so, there was just so much tragedy and despair and no sun on the horizon (no possible happy ending in sight). And the characters, well I can’t say I wholeheartedly approve them though they aren’t really in the wrong, and they certainly aren’t evil (at least in the normal sense of the word). Their motivations are partially known or obscured, depends how you look upon it and certainly not in tandem.

Well, in The Obelisk Gate, you get to see more of the other character’s and more into them. Nassun (Essun’s daughter), Hoa, and even Schaffa (Essun’s once Guardian). And Of course there is Essun. I think I like The Obelisk Gate better, if on nothing else than principle. There’s still that awful despair and impending sense of doom but at least it’s constructive. And there’s the fact that this book is ‘gravitational’, you just can’t help reading further, wanting to know. You understand more about the opposing factions, and who all are involved in or perpetuating the war. And that a lot of these round about concepts of orogeny come to and through the discovery of magic. That’s plenty to think upon, and you should properly discover the rest yourself.

Another thing and this is about both The Fifth Season and The Obelisk Gate, since I read M.L.S. Weech’s post about third person limited omniscient and third person omniscient, I’m wondering, is this book a mixture of those two or is it second person and third person limited omnicient or another writing style. I never thought much about books in these terms, but after having read that post, can’t help but wonder.