Review – The Killing Moon (Dreamblood, Book 1) by N.K. Jemisin, Narrated by Sarah Zimmerman (2/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 12 hours and 38 minutes (448 pages)
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Release Date: May 1, 2012
ASIN: B007Z963BE
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Dreamblood series
Source: Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 2/5 stars

“The city burned beneath the Dreaming Moon.

In the ancient city-state of Gujaareh, peace is the only law. Upon its rooftops and amongst the shadows of its cobbled streets wait the Gatherers – the keepers of this peace. Priests of the dream-goddess, their duty is to harvest the magic of the sleeping mind and use it to heal, soothe . . . and kill those judged corrupt.

But when a conspiracy blooms within Gujaareh’s great temple, Ehiru – the most famous of the city’s Gatherers – must question everything he knows. Someone, or something, is murdering dreamers in the goddess’ name, stalking its prey both in Gujaareh’s alleys and the realm of dreams. Ehiru must now protect the woman he was sent to kill – or watch the city be devoured by war and forbidden magic.”

I have had this book for some time to read. I enjoyed Jemison’s Inheritance series so I was excited to read this one, but I ended up not liking this at all. If I hadn’t been listening to this on audiobook I would have stopped reading it.

I listened to this on audiobook and the narration was very well done. Zimmerman did a wonderful job reading it. I did think it was a bit weird to have a female narrator when most of the book was told from a male perspective, but this wasn’t too distracting.

The story itself moves really slow and is very boring. Some of the world building elements were interesting; like the Dreamblood and the religion around all of that. I also thought the relationship between Ehiru and his apprentice was well done.

The above being said, there was a lot more I didn’t like. This is a very typical story of corruption in religion affecting a government. Nothing all that interesting to me. For what the story ends up being it was very long.

I also felt distanced from the characters and the world the whole time; like I was looking in through a foggy glass. This made it very hard to engage for me. The story does tie up pretty well which is nice since I will not be reading the 2nd book in the series.

Overall this was a long and boring read that was not at all that creative from a storyline perspective. While some of the world-building around dreaming was intriguing, the story itself was very typical in nature. I didn’t enjoy it even a little bit and will not be continuing the series. In fact this was bad enough that I probably won’t pick up any books by Jemisin in the future.