Review: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

Title: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
Author: N.K. Jemisin
Series: Inheritance Trilogy #1
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Orbit
Publication Date: February 25, 2010
Edition: Kindle
Source: Purchased
Purchase: Amazon US | Barnes & Noble | BAM | Bookshop | Kobo | Powell's | 

Synopsis:

   Yeine Darr is an outcast from the barbarian north. But when her mother dies under mysterious circumstances, she is summoned to the majestic city of Sky. There, to her shock, Yeine is named an heiress to the king. But the throne of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is not easily won, and Yeine is thrust into a vicious power struggle with cousins she never knew she had. As she fights for her life, she draws ever closer to the secrets of her mother's death and her family's bloody history.
   With the fate of the world hanging in the balance, Yeine will learn how perilous it can be when love and hate -- and gods and mortals -- are bound inseparably together.
   After her mother's mysterious death, a young woman is summoned to the floating city of Sky in order to claim a royal inheritance she never knew existed in the first book in this award-winning fantasy trilogy from the NYT bestselling author of The Fifth Season.

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I honestly don't know where to begin. This book had a narrative structure that I wasn't used to, and I almost DNF'd a few times. But I kept going because I was invested in the characters, even when the world didn't always make sense to me. Not the gods parts, but the social structure was a little confusing. It didn't help my understanding when the world was very centralized to one city. There are brief moments outside the city but besides that it all takes place inside the palace.

 

This book felt short. It's not being over 400 pages but it feels like an incomplete story. I know there's two more books, but they follow other characters. And the character I want to know a little more about is Yeine. There's so little we learn about her life before being summoned by her estranged Grandfather, and by the end of the book I don't feel like I learned more about her as a person in general. 

 

This isn't a romance, but the romantic elements didn't work for me. Something about it felt, off, for lack of a better word. It felt like it came out of left field, and I didn't find it believable. I'm also over all very confused about what all the Godlings abilities are. The magic was so vaguely explained that I don't know what they can do, and what the limit there is to their power since being trapped in human bodies. 

This book just left me wanting, and I don't know what was missing for me.

 

I will be reading more Jemisin's books, I do like her writing I just don't think this series is for me. I have her Broken Earth series and that one sounds more like something I'd enjoy.