The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth #1)by N.K. Jemisin
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Synopsis:
This is the way the world ends. Again.
Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze -- the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization's bedrock for a thousand years -- collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman's vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.
Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She'll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.
What you know for sure is that you’re not a child. You don’t want to know what would happen if you were (this world is nasty). But you walk. Restlessly, you walk. At this point you’re not sure it means something. You go on, though, because you’re intrigued. Orogene, guardian, pirate, commless, you’re part of the humanity anyway (they don’t think you are). You’re no stranger to rules (death awaits if you are) yet life destroys them at times (this is the way the world ends, again). Sometimes you wish info-dumping existed (confusion is you) but not anymore (you just wait, it makes sense).
(Friends do not exist. The fulcrum is not a school. Grits are not children. Orogenes are not people. Weapons have no need of friends.)
They lied, didn’t they? (of course they did) The rage (or is it revenge) threatens to close your throat at any moment but you are strong, so go on, go on, just a little longer.
“Perhaps you think it wrong that I dwell so much on the horrors, the pain, but pain is what shapes us, after all. We are creatures born of heat and pressure and grinding, ceaseless movement. To be still is to be… not alive.”
You’re not sure how it happened but you laugh. It’s a strange thing, that laugh. It takes you by surprise (the tears are never far).
“But this is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
For the last time.”
You understand, finally, and you’re amazed (it hurts, though).
