Match Book
The Fifth Season
N. K. Jemisin
2015 · Fantasy
How it reads
The Fifth Season is fantasy (dystopian fantasy, specifically), and its dominant mood is dark. It goes to difficult places and doesn't look away. It moves fast: plot-driven and hard to put down, the kind of book that carries you along even when you're tired.
It's set in an invented world, in the recent past, told in the third person across several viewpoints. Its central concerns are survival, nature and power and politics. In weight it's heavy and literary — denser, more serious, and more demanding of you.
It opens a series. The ending is bittersweet: it resolves, but at a price. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.
Pick it up if…
- you're in the mood for something dark
- you want a book that pulls you through
- you want something to chew on
Maybe not if…
- you need something cosy, heartwarming or funny
All 15 dimensions
- Genre
- fantasy
- Author gender
- female
- Author experience
- prolific veteran
- Setting: place
- fictional world
- Setting: time
- recent past
- Mood / feeling
- dark
- Pace
- fast paced
- Tone / weight
- heavy and literary
- Length
- medium
- Narrative style
- third person, several viewpoints
- Publication era
- modern classic
- Popularity
- well known
- Series vs standalone
- first in a series
- Themes
- survival, nature, power and politics
- Ending style
- bittersweet
What these mean: the 15 dimensions of a book.
Books with a similar reading
The closest books in Match Book's catalogue across the same dimensions, and what they share.
The Obelisk GateN. K. JemisinShares: fantasy, dark mood, heavy and literary tone, fast paced
The Bone SeasonSamantha ShannonShares: fantasy, dark mood, dystopian fantasy, fast paced
The Dragon RepublicR. F. KuangShares: fantasy, dark mood, heavy and literary tone, fast paced- Prince of ThornsMark LawrenceShares: fantasy, dark mood, heavy and literary tone, fast paced
ManacledSenLinYuShares: fantasy, dark mood, heavy and literary tone, fast paced- AsunderKerstin HallShares: fantasy, dark mood, heavy and literary tone, set in an invented world
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