Amadan na Briona

I really wanted to like this book more than I did. It wasn't bad. I'll probably read the third book in the series. But honestly, I thought the first book held promise despite some rough writing and annoying bumps in the narrative. A decent debut novel. Book two... was not better-written. Jemisin still has that annoying habit of inserting "* * *" in the middle of the narrative as the main character breaks her train of thought and decides to talk about something else. The prose often seems to lack polish. And while I liked seeing a bit more of the world of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, we don't get to see a lot more. Most of the action still takes place in or under the cloud city of Sky.

More disappointing to me is that while this series is supposedly "epic fantasy," if not for the secondary world setting and the bigger scope of the supernatural love interests (gods, rather than vampires or werewolves or fairies), this would be sitting on the shelf next to all the other paranormal romances.

There is a little bit of forward motion in terms of the series arc, but if there is anything truly world-shaking that's going to occur, it will have to wait until book three.

What I really, really didn't like was the passive heroine and the undifferentiated nature of the characters, and worse, that this was what I didn't like in the first book. So I really hope Jemisin ups her game in book three. I'm teetering right on the edge of "Is this trilogy worth finishing?"