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!

We are in the crunch phase of Christmas planning and pre-vacation work and also a resurgence of unwanted visitor, C O V I D, so I’m going to try to form some thoughts about Window Shopping by Tessa Bailey amid the chaos.

❤️The Nice List❤️
- this is a workplace romance between a boss and an employee with the potential for a very gross power imbalance that I thought Bailey handled very well
- Stella is working to regain her independence and she does a good job setting boundaries with Aiden
- Communication on most things in this relationship were good
- The spicy bits were great…except for a couple of major issues, which brings me to…

I really liked this book but it’s the Saturday before Christmas and I’m like the human equivalent a burned out match stump, so here’s a ramble:

Alex is hilarious. He is a person I would enjoy hanging out with in real life. I read somewhere that neurodivergent people seek each other out, so maybe that’s it? The ADHD in me sees the ADHD in him or something. Anyway, I liked him A LOT. He reminded me of myself, especially when he was at his most annoying which…I don’t know what that says about me but

I definitely thought Redemptor was the second book in a trilogy, and it is definitely the end of a duology. Thus, I was kind of sad last night when it started to dawn on me that this book was THE END as I neared the last couple of chapters.

Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade is one of those books that was supposed to be comforting but had me ALL the way stressed out, although I really enjoyed it.