Reviews with content warning for Torture - The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

I’m not entirely sure what I think about this book. I’m not entirely sure what happened or what it means, but just like NK Jemison’s other stories, it is unbelievably unique. It was fairly slow for a while(more human drama than I’m used to) but then it picked up and I couldn’t put it down. Also: very graphically violent.

Content Warnings

emilycfox's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.25

I’ll read the next one but wasn’t blown away. I never felt like I really got close enough to the characters to care about what they did (I don’t have to necessarily like them for that to happen, but I need to feel some stakes). It felt like I was waiting to get sucked in but it never happened. Overall kinda boring but not unpleasant. I didn’t really understand the logistics of the big thing that happens with Yienne at the end — how it was possible or why it happened according to the physics of this magic world. I was going to look up others’ explanations or analysis but then didn’t really care enough to do it.

Content Warnings

kemrick19's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

squids_can_read's review against another edition

Go to review page

slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.5

This book was horrible. I thought this was going to be about a young woman who is thrust into politics and is fighting for the throne. Instead, I got a weird amalgamation of half-baked science fiction and incestual gods. The main character is about as interesting as watching paint dry. The world-building is nonexistent. The rest of the characters are no better. This could have been a brilliant book about how love makes us complete but no it's just about sex. Honestly, why push the point that the gods are siblings if you are going to make their whole relationship just about sex? It's gross. Do you know what else is gross, pushing that this god character is fundamentally a child and then referencing people having sex with said child? Honestly, I don't know how I pushed my way through this. It was terrible. Maybe some people will like it but it just wasn't my cup of tea. I will probably not be reading anything else by this author.

Content Warnings

daniella_lo's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous hopeful inspiring mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Beautiful, challenges ideas of what makes a god and a mortal, what makes us human

Content Warnings

vigil's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.75

this book, was not amazing. plotwise, it was very promising and admittedly, i love an

apotheosis

story, so on this front i was easy to please. that said i don’t think it was done as deftly as it could’ve been, as any real moments of insight into plot and character developments where easily undercut by scene after scene of yeine’s coochie quaking because of nahadoth, a half baked and unconvincing romance that never made me quite believe that their feelings towards each other where separate from

enefa’s influence

nor that they genuinely enjoyed each other outside of inexplicable horniness. it grew more believable at the final portions, but by then it was too late.

the romance in general is not to my taste, as i can only liken it to being nk jemisin’s take on a sarah j mass plot, with shoddy the worldbuilding and flat characters included. yeine has moments where she’s almost interesting, as does nahadoth, but then jemisin has them fall back into the role of the new adult jerkass inhuman romance plot (which i must say, an inhuman mortal immortal romance can in fact work, and my prime recommendation is the winternight trilogy, starting with the bear and the nightingale) and then their boring again. the most intriguing aspects of this book happen when they are not involved with one another (and thus the main plot as the two are inextricably tied) such as when yeine is looking into her mother’s past, or her own personal connection with her home country and family there, and when nahadoth interacts with the other gods, particularly the flashbacks.

this book could’ve been great, and it wasn’t a terrible reading experience, but it wasn’t all it could’ve been.

Content Warnings

More...