Annals of the Western Shore: Gifts, 1 (Paperback)

from cajela

The first of what's currently a trilogy of young adult fantasy, this should appeal to lovers of the Earthsea cycle. It's a coming of age story, written softly and gently in LeGuin's inimitable prose style. The child Orrec lives in the uplands, harsh grazing and farming lands with a political land...

from nmele

The more I read Le Guin, the more I am struck by her depth and skill at telling stories. I read this looking for a YA novel that had more nuance to it than much of the commercial fiction my grandchildren read, and Le Guin did not disappoint me. Sending this first volume out to two of them, and th...

from satyridae

This is the story of Orrec, and how he comes to terms with his family's gift, which is the gift of unmaking. There are some pretty graphic descriptions of unmaking that are, oh, let's just call them effective. *shudder* I liked this book a lot, yet it's not going to be one of my favorites of hers...

from TheDivineOomba

This is a coming of age novel set in the Uplands - people are poor, but are born with certain gifts that run in families. Orrec is born to a family that has unmaking as their gift - and when he accidentally destroys a whole grove, he blinds himself with a blindfold until his gift can be controlle...

from AnnieHidalgo

I think I like LeGuin's short stories more than any longer work she's ever published. There are a lot of interesting what-if scenarios in here - the best being a tale about a group of children who never sleep, and what happens to their brains as a result.