The Obelisk Gate

N. K. Jemisin
The Obelisk Gate Cover

The Obelisk Gate

spectru
4/15/2017
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This is the second in a trilogy. I read the first book, The Fifth Season, and enjoyed it. The Obelisk Gate was a disappointment.

The prose is well styled, but it is mostly written in the second person. The narrator, whose name is Essun, refers to herself a 'you'. This grammatical peculiarity began in the first book. I had hoped it wouldn't continue in the second. Things happen to the characters, but there is no plot. There is hardly a story. You are searching for your daughter and near the end of the book you and your daughter sense that each of you are alive. There is no climax.

For being such a long book, The Obelisk Gate seems to be just a preamble to the third book in the trilogy, but I expect I'll never know for sure.

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