Reviews - The Left Hand of Darkness

10.1k reviews for:

The Left Hand of Darkness

Ursula K. Le Guin

4.07 AVERAGE

versusreality's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous emotional informative mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

cattytrona's review against another edition

4.0

great. i already knew a lot about left hand of darkness from reputation/friends/having read essays and stories by le guin where she reengages with it, but it still managed to surprise me a bit. i liked how much of this was about adapting to the cold, not just/as part of the social life, and was struck by how much more convincingly about sexuality than gender this was. that’s sort of le guin’s final note of message too, at least as i read it. it’s not all message though, and le guin seemed to me much more interested in exploring than telling. the book’s aged fairly well, and i enjoyed the story, although it is fairly straightforward in terms of plot – it’s not the first le guin story i’ve read structured around the journey, nor even a journey across ice – and at times it feels like the worldbuilding came first, before the story and certainly before the characters. i have been left wanting before by le guin’s rendering of relationships, at least in the earlier works i’ve read, and i think this is better, but only because of story context. what i did find with this was that it was very readable. i obviously have a lot of time for le guin’s writing, but i’m not always swept up by her prose, despite the presence of some gem sentences. this though, despite its slowness, despite its plotty simplicity, slipped down. this seems quite a hesitant review for a book i enjoyed, more than i thought i might. it’s good. it does what it does, and that’s very interesting

soundchaser's review

3.0

Le Guin has never done much for me. Not to say that she's a bad author, just not my kind of writing. I've read this before but it's not doing anything for me. I'm moving on.

secretredneck's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

cosmospoons's review against another edition

3.0

challenging informative slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I can see why this is so formative as am early sci-fi book, and objectively its probably very good! I'm just,,,, I'm not fond of jargon heavy world building and I found this a surprisingly difficult read 😅😅