Reviews

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

cadimy's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional reflective

4.25

elise_t_'s review

adventurous fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

bhnmt61's review

4.0

WOW. I’m not sure what I was expecting but it wasn’t this. I don’t read much fantasy anymore so maybe I was just ripe for the experience, but I found this completely immersive, which is exactly what I was hoping for when I picked it up. Palace intrigue, a complex social hierarchy, enslaved gods— there’s a little bit of everything in this book. It’s Jemisin’s first novel, and there are some moments when it seemed a little clumsy. But other than that, loved it. Looking forward to reading more of her work, although I may skip ahead to the Fifth Season. I see there are two more books in this trilogy, but the story wraps up pretty well at the end of this one and I’m not sure I need more.

erindolson's review

3.0

3.5 ⭐️’s for me. It was cool to see the story unfold but I was so confused all the time.

lillianbentley's review against another edition

3.0

I liked a lot of things that happened in this book! I just spent a lot of my time being confused. The writing would go back and forth in time and add random paragraphs of information and I spent a lot of my time trying to figure out what the heck was going on.

lindsey_mankey's review

5.0

I definitely felt like I had to specifically set aside time to read this book because it required some focus to keep up with the split narration and backstory. However, I think this actually made me like the book more. I enjoyed how it allows the reader to speculate instead of immediately giving answers.

Also, the characters and world building were really well done in my opinion. The author made it seem like the world and the characters actually existed outside the immediate story.

cjroyg's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

chrisreads52's review

mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

andrewsweet's review

5.0

I think I'll have to tweak how I give reviews, considering the number of good books I've read lately!

This one was amazing! I knew it would be good - I've read other books by the author. But the imagined societies and transformation of the main character - concepts that are hard to follow were presented in a way that's both consumable and still manages to capture the nuance of both today's society, and societies past. What a thorough and thoroughly enjoyable imagining of a new world!

outcolder's review

3.0

This was slow going for me at first, and I don't agree with a lot of the hype... promotional quotes galore in my copy promising "lush" "world-building" ... what I did like though is the murder mystery aspect (although even that was just about interviewing witnesses and suspects... not much evidence) and the weird stuff about slavery. The kind of dominant-submissive romance is not my thing at all, and I got skeeved out by some choking stuff that was a part of that. But I really liked the end, the last 60 pages or so. I am hoping maybe as the series continues that the world will get more lush, and maybe the magic will have more rules.