Can't get enough of this author
After this book was finished I was frantic to get my hands on the next book in the series. It is so compelling, you wouldn't believe that such an unsympathetic protagonist could so completely consume you with her story. She continues to have destructive effects on her environment, and her nature is so strange and alien that you can't help but feel that there is some reason or value in her life. I think it is this alien quality that makes this series so special. It just transports you, it is pure fantasy, and yet you feel like there is this possibility that these things could happen — that this world is as real as science fiction and has perhaps more value than a more closer approximation of reality. Of course, as a black female writer who embraces that identity, you feel Jemisin is giving insight into a repressed/oppressed segment of society. Her words are subversive and powerful, in that she rejects easy judgments and ethical standards. She challenges the reader to accept pain as part of life, and reject twisted, manipulative relationships… Even while acknowledging that the people engaged in these dramas are not necessarily good or evil all the time.