Read Women discussion

Firstly: Sorry this is so late! I typed up a post on the 1st but apparently it didn't go through (dodgy net) and I have been super busy moving house (hence dodgy net) so just figured no one had replied until I checked the group today! Sorry again!

Anyways! Thread is going up now, so anyone reading along with The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, here's the place to discuss it!

About The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (Wikipedia)

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is N. K. Jemisin's debut novel, the first book of The Inheritance Trilogy. The fantasy novel was published 2010 by Orbit. It is a winner of the 2011 Locus Award for Best First Novel, the Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award, and it has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, Crawford, Gemmell, Tiptree and World Fantasy awards. The sequel is The Broken Kingdoms, also released in 2010.

Plot Summary (also Wikipedia)
Yeine Darr, mourning the murder of her mother, is summoned to the magnificent floating city of Sky by her grandfather Dekarta, the ruler of the world and head of the Arameri family. As Yeine is also Arameri (though estranged due to the circumstances of her birth), he names her his heir but has already assigned that role to both his niece and his nephew, resulting in a thorny three-way power struggle. Yeine must quickly master the intricacies of the cruel Arameri society to have any hope of winning. She is also drawn into the intrigues of the gods, four of whom dwell in Sky as the Arameri's powerful, enslaved weapons. With only a few days until the ceremony of the Arameri succession, Yeine struggles to solve her mother's murder while surviving the machinations of her relatives and the gods.

So I've now read this already. So this time I can come up with a few of my own questions to begin with rather than fooling for other peoples!

Again, these are less questions that you have to answer, and more things to consider/facilitate discussion. If you have other points and opinions you want to bring up, please do!

1. Did you enjoy the book? And if so, will you be reading the rest of the trilogy? Or are you not that fussed/happy with it as a standalone?

2. I was interested in reading this because it was billed as 'not your typical' fantasy. Did you think it differed significantly from most fantasy? And if so how? If not, how not?

3. The book is called 'The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms'. How well do you think the world and its many kingdoms were realised. What did you like/dislike about the setting? Do you think the title fit the book?

4. What did you think of Yiene? Did your opinion change over the course of the book?

5. What did you make of the romances in the book?

6. Favourite character? Why?

End of the month so here's my thoughts:


1. Did I enjoy the book?
Yes...but not as much as I hoped. Now that I've had a bit of time for 'new story!' feeling to wear off I think I'd rate it a solid three stars, maybe edging on 3.5. Good, but probably not sticking stongly with me, and I still have a lot I can critique about it. I probably will read the sequels eventually, because I am a bit of a completionist, but I'm not in any great hurry to do so. Escpecially as there was no cliffhanger and it worked very well as a standalone book with the sequels set in the same world but with mostly different characters.

rest of questions answered under a spoiler cut.
(view spoiler)[2. Did I think it differed significantly from most fantasy?
Not as much as I had expected, given the people who recommending it and the way they were doing so. Yes, the protagonist is brown and curly haired and comes from a matriarchal warrior society, and I liked that, but personality wise she felt much like most other teen-girl fantasy/YA protagonists. The stuff with the gods was pretty novel and interesting and I liked the child god but...that romance plotline was a bit of a tumour on the story and again, the sort of thing I would expect to encounter in lots of YA-Fantasy. While there were story elements that were very different (it's almost all one setting, not some long quest through the world, it's got a very limited cast and, for most of the story people are just talking with almost no action scenes, oh and same-sex romances aren't considered shocking or abnormal), looking back on it a lot of the book was about the rather clichéd 'destined to fall in love/lust' story between a god and a very special teenager.

3. How well do you think the world and its many kingdoms were realised. What did you like/dislike about the setting? Do you think the title fit the book?
I liked what we heard of the rest of the world, but I am a bit sad we didn't really get to see it. The action, aside from about two scenes, all takes place in one location and there is a lot of telling rather than showing, and Yiene is a very detached narrator so a lot of the telling felt like history lessons. I am told Yiene is a powerful warrior and politician in her matriarchal homeland - but the way she acts I have trouble believing it. It was also hard to find the hate Yeine had for the Arameri society when (apart from one or two scenes) we are only ever told that they are awful and depraved and not really offered much evidence. I was definitely expecting to see more of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and the people in it though, not one setting and only a handful of characters.

4. What did you think of Yiene? Did your opinion change over the course of the book?
I liked her a lot to begin with but liked her significantly less by the end. What I had thought was political caution seemed to turn into passiveness over the course of the story and I thought she gave in way too fast when the odds were against her even when failure might mean death. I think in one scene she declares very determinedly that she will win the contest to be the next heir, but then she never even tries to do so afterwards and just rolls over and accepts her fate. And what I initially read as 'thank god, we're acknowledging that most teenage girls have a libido and ocassional dirty thoughts' quickly turned into almost all her thoughts revolving in some way around her love interest... I still think she's interesting. But I think the Yiene from the start of the book, with all her potential, is more interesting than the ground-down lustsick Yiene in the middle of the book.

5. What did you make of the romances in the book?
I wouldn't have minded too much, even if it is a bit cheesy. But the attention devoted to it was a bit exhausting. I get it, he's troubled and hot and violent and you may or may not be the reincarnation of his lover, but can we stop mooning over him and imagining sexy times for long enough to do something about the main plot? (hide spoiler)]