The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (Inheritance Trilogy #1) by N.K. Jemisin

 ⭐☆☆☆☆

I picked this up after hearing about the author and hearing good things about the novel. I mean, she won the Hugo award for this novel so I figured it must be very good, right?

Wrong, not amazing. Pretty standard story-line, an orphaned child, in this case a young woman, is called into a political situation where she must learn secrets about her past in order to survive. Along the way, she falls in love with a god, which honestly makes me tired, and there's some constant foreshadowing throughout.

I felt that this novel had a lot going for it. I appreciated the thoughtful discussions of slavery and class. It didn't feel like I was being preached to but allowed me to consider those issues separated from the fraught emotions that might come up if a novel was set in a historical fantasy or urban fantasy setting. It was also nice to have a lead character who was a strong young woman.

That's where it all fell apart, however. The character, who was somehow a tribal leader back home, was surprisingly naive and overly trusting in the political home of her grandfather. Her whole love story with the god Nahadoth was stereotypical of YA novels. He's older (he's a freaking god), he's beautiful (again god), he's powerful (repeat), and she falls for him. Why? Just gross.

I didn't finish this novel either. I was so annoyed with the main character's naivety and the whole storyline.

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