"If you love someone, you don't get to choose how they love you back."

Review of The Stone Sky (2017) by N. K. Jemisin

We have finally reached the end of the Broken Earth trilogy. There is no release from apocalyptic despair. Only acquiescence. Survival is no longer the act of overcoming. But of forbearance.

That’s no longer the case. Essun’s had enough. So have the stone-eaters, Father Earth, and Nassun, especially Nassun. The players in this dying world are ready to make change happen. But they all have their own agendas. Essun wants to bring the moon back in circuit to end the cycle of ecological catastrophes. The stone-eaters want the humans gone. Earth wants retribution. Nassun? Nassun’s the one that I’m most intrigued by.

On the surface, it looks like Nassun just wants to save the man who saved her, who’s come to be like a father to her. But this kind of love, when viewed in the context of the entire arc, is the horrific consequence of generations of violence, lies and pain, culminating in that simple and almost childish desire to have someone to love, because this is a world where even that is a commodity few can afford.

Then as we get to the narrative and emotional climax, and we witness Essun and Nassun facing each other, should it not be curious that they happen to be mother and daughter? There is definitely poetic justice in drawing this relational paradigm as the platform for discussing violence, memory, and forgetfulness—for often it is the daughter who struggles to be different from her mother, only to circle back and realise there is no one more like her than herself. And it is here we see Jemisin’s real strength—that in the midst of the storm, she is able to lead us into the crevices, creating intimate moments between the characters but also between the story and the reader.

That’s why even though it’s been a while since I finished The Stone Sky, thinking about it now still brings back some pretty raw feelings about it. Ugh. So allow me a moment of privacy as I go cry in a corner and wallow in this happily sad state of mind.