Unsuccessful Book Club Episode 27: in which our erstwhile reader attempts to read NK Jemisin’s entire backlist.

The Broken Kingdoms is the second book of Jemisin’s first series, The Inheritance Trilogy. I know there is a thing called “Second Book Syndrome” where the second book in a series can be a little bit of a let down, but that is absolutely not the case with this one.

WOW! Did I say wow yet? Just think of that Owen Wilson saying wow a bunch of times sound from TikTok and that’s how many times I need to say wow about this book. Wow.

There are two major things I need to tell you about as a stand-in for a full review, since there’s no way to give you a full review without spoiling this:

- The narrator, Oree, is blind. And the book is written in first person. But the descriptions are amazing. Jaw-dropping. We have a narrator who can only see magic (which, what even is that? We don’t have a basis of comparison in every day life) but as a reader you can clearly understand and visualize everything she experiences. THIS IS WHY I STAN JEMISIN SO HARD. THE TALENT!