ultimately this was a 3.5 but I have rounded up since i was intrigued all the way through even though I didnt really understand 70% of it! lol

Firstly, this book is more Sci Fi than it is Fantasy which i didn't expect but while this does not take anything away from the novel itself, it was difficult to really understand the world at times because of all the jargon it required to explain it.

The Fifth Season opens with a woman who's husband has murdered her infant son and she sets out to find her husband so she can enact revenge. The husband has also taken their daughter so she must find out whether the child is alive or not. The reason this is in question, is that the woman in question and her children are what's known as orogenes, people who have the power to manipulate the seismic shifts and the like. They can feel and move the earth, i guess like air bending but like, not as cool, but they are feared and abused for this for reasons you learn.
The world they inhabit basically goes through various armaggeddon levels of destruction every few years or so and noone knows how long they will last. As an effect, the world is regressed into a primitive society who protect the useful, dismiss the useless and enslave those they are afraid of.
Frightening how familiar that reads, eh?

Anyway, we follow three POVS, one of which is written in 2nd person which took a while to get into but was very immersive which i enjoyed. 2nd person present was a new outing, and i really dug it. It was emotional, intense, gut wrenching in parts and just so very adult. After a run of childish YA - not saying YA is childish but that people have been writing lower end YA - it was nice to have something that made my brain work.
Saying that however, my brain did WORK! I am not a geometrist or meterologist so this was very difficult to truly love simply because it was so new. There were moments of revelation from the characters that i simply couldnt follow because I just didnt get it. I felt like i need Wikipedia on the side to explain what tectonic plates are the density of zyonite or some shit haha

It was very particular which was great but even by the end when everything finally came together, I still felt like I was hanging off a cliff just waiting to fall. Waiting for the impact that would do something to me.

Overall, this is an ambitious and inventive take on the ecogeddon/armageddon/world destruction narrative and I loved the social and political commentary that mirrors a lot of our failing world.
A favourite for some and where I can see why, I doubt its one I would read again. I will read the sequel but I think I need to cool my brain down first before it overheats!