I could feel her yearning to satisfy the grandfather who wanted nothing to do with her and wondering why her mother had chosen an improper man and a life of hardship. I understood her fear and confusion at being thrust in a place that had claimed her but didn’t seem to want her. When I read The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms I was Yeine and she was me. Sure she lives in a palace built inside a huge tree. Sure she spends time making out with a super hot god of darkness. Sure Yeine is for all intents and purposes a princess. Yeine was a character I could see myself in: not some small piece, but ALL of myself. This was a character I worried about when I’d set the book down. This was a character I could relate to not on a superficial, let’s-read-a-story level. A biracial black woman (this is how I understood the book and I’m not open to discussing this, thanks) navigating two very different worlds. I could always skim it if it blew.īut a few pages in I began to realize I was in unfamiliar territory: this was a book about a black woman. A quick read of the blurb and I figured what the heck, might as well pick it up. The book was on the shelf of my local library: golden and eye-catching, a too big for the mass market paperback shelf where the librarians had placed it, an outdated unicorn and castle sticker on the spine marking it “FANTASY”. Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms that made me pick it up.

(You can add The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms to your Goodreads shelves Here!)

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