The Fifth Season

Torn between 4 and 5 stars. There was so much to love, mainly the complete absence of reader-coddling, the worldbuilding, acerbic humour and, in spite of myself, the writing style. (The parentheses.) It's not often that you as a reader are thrown in at the deep end and just have to learn how to swim. Bravo!
On the other hand though, none of the relationships seemed to have any real substance, except - twistedly - the one between Syen and her guardian, and even that one was mostly tell and no show, with some poignant exceptions. But the bond between mother and child, between husband and wife, between friends, lovers? Everybody seemed weirdly untouched by human contact. I felt the writer could have done better there.

So after all, 4 it is.