Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Karanlığın Sol Eli by Ursula K. Le Guin

17 reviews

lostgwennel's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective relaxing sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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A book hasn’t emotionally affected me this much in a looong time

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Incest, Suicide

Minor: Child death

voxisweet's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Incest, Misogyny, Suicide, Torture

Minor: Child death, Pregnancy

mrgriffit's review against another edition

4.5

challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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A masterclass in storytelling. About how people connect with each other, their country, and their world. It’s at its best when the main characters are pushed together and the only flaw I can find is that it doesn’t get to the point where they are “together” until much later in the story than I wished.

On an altogether different note, it feels as though in some ways, the journey that began in Rocannon’s World is finished here. The gift of Mindspeech is finally used for its true purpose, connection and understanding. A tool to bring people together, not to dominate or destroy.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Incest, Misogyny, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Murder, Pregnancy

gilnean's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous dark funny hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Drug use, Gun violence, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Medical content, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Murder, Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Incest, Mental illness, Sexual content, Suicide, Terminal illness, Blood, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, War

Minor: Ableism, Child death, Cursing, Homophobia, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Excrement, Vomit, Sexual harassment

ylimets's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide, Xenophobia

Minor: Animal death, Child death, Incest

angorarabbit's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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TLDR:  A bit challenging, it needs a closer reading than many first contact sci-fi novels, but is worth the effort for the ideas and the writing. 

 

Clarketech:  Mind speech, near light speed space travel, ftl communications, Chabe stoves, cryosleep or hibernation during space flights. 

 

Context:  I loved what had been published in the Earthsea series in the late 1970’s so tried to read this then. Sadly, my head was too full of wizards and dragons for me to appreciate this gem. I am sorry I didn’t rectify my error before now. 

 

I did have difficulty getting into the novel. The book is written first person singular with short hearth-tales, interspersed for the first quarter of the novel. Then a second voice is added. You then go back and forth between povs with the only indication being the context of the chapter.. 

 

Ms LeGuin does not hold your hand introducing you to this new world. While my edition did have a few helpful footnotes and a Gethenian Calendar and Clock addendum; there are many words are in the native languages with little to no explanation as to what an earth translation might be. It took me awhile to understand that Estraven was writing in a journal and that the strange words were dates. 

 

I have read that there is some controversy over the use of the pronoun he to describe the inhabitants of Gethen. Ms LeGuin has appologized for this. I would point out that he was used instead of they in the US in the 1960’s The author has also acknowledged and apologised for the presumption that all Gethens were heterosexual . So much of the novel being Genly’s report, I don’t think there is enough information to judge how the Gethens actually felt about orientation. I would agree that Genly does appear to be homophobic or perhaps in denial over his own orientation, especially in the middle chapters. 

 

I also wondered at Genly’s statement that very few women were known as mathematicians, composers, or inventors. He seems to be at a loss when talking about women at all and seems to be uncomfortable with what he sees as feminine characteristics. It seemed that the Ekumen would have an equal division of labour on its ships. In fact the first Ekumen off the ship in the last chapter is identified as female. One would also think that their first contact on a planet would be more comfortable with any gender. 

 

There are many thoughtful and beautiful passages in the book and it is a great starting point to discussing gender and orientation. I did not see any passages that would be problematic for a tween to read. I would like to get the collected Hainish Cycle and read the novels and stories in sequence, plus reread this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Homophobia, Incest, Misogyny, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Alcohol

gender and orientation diversity is complicated

acemummerz's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Torture, Deportation

Minor: Child death, Incest, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Excrement, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, Pregnancy, War, Injury/Injury detail

sunn_bleach's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous challenging mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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I read "The Left Hand of Darkness" in 2018 and didn't really get it. Yeah, I got the subversion of man-as-default, but I didn't get some of the deeper considerations Le Guin was going for regarding societies that previously did not know war and totalitarian systems that don't match one-for-one to our earthly systems. I also found Genly and Estraven's trip over the icefield monotonous - but after four years of serious mountaineering pursuits, it's anything but that, and Le Guin masterfully captured the sheer stress of being on the run for one's lives while also underneath the beauty of the stars. I'm tempted to argue that the gender fiction aspect falls prey to TVTropes' "Seinfeld is Unfunny" given how much has progressed in half a century (like the he/him pronoun aspect not being as radical), but the fact it still makes me think shows it's relevant 25 years into the new millennium. Masterful book, and a good example of "the worst criticism I have is that it could be longer"... and the ending felt a little saccharine, losing the conceit of it being a report. But still!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Forced institutionalization, Medical trauma

Moderate: Gun violence, Incest, Violence

Minor: Child death, Sexism, Pregnancy, War

bookish_perseus's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous dark emotional informative lighthearted reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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It did take a while for me to be able to start this book, and at times I found it incredibly slow, complex or tedious.

I did keep reading it because there was a small interest as to what would happen, even though this book is following what could be considered a 'usual every day life'.

Towards the end, I found the final 3 or 4 chapters actually quite interesting. Not something I'd read again, but glad I finished it!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body shaming, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Hate crime, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Deportation

Minor: Body shaming, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Hate crime, Incest, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, Sexual harassment, War, Injury/Injury detail, Deportation

amaya_jam's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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i see the intrinsic value of this book and it brings forward a lot of interesting concepts but i found the story ultimately unsatisfying.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Sexual content, Terminal illness

Moderate: Slavery, Vomit, Trafficking

Minor: Child death, Pregnancy