Reviews - The Left Hand of Darkness

11k reviews for:

The Left Hand of Darkness

Ursula K. Le Guin

4.07 AVERAGE

vej_bou's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense slow-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

A very profound book, which definitely needs to be read more than once to fully appreciate (though it definitely is not hard to get into, even for someone mostly unfamiliar with science fiction).

I loved the social commentary on gender & sex, the ambiguity of Genly's and Estraven's relationship and how this progressed, as well as the subtle expressions of the immigrant experience, through Genly's curiosity and continuous struggle to understand Gethenian society & culture and his feeling of being a stranger among his own people when he is reunited with them.

There is so much more within this book that I have not included, but for that you will need to read the book yourself!

andrewgolden's review against another edition

2.75

challenging slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

rooree93's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

doublethinker's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

_slara's review against another edition

4.0

challenging emotional inspiring slow-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

andyslibrary42's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging reflective slow-paced

This was not what I expected from a classic sci fi novel, or really any classics, but it shocked me with some of the things it explored. Specifically gender, sexuality and identity. We follow Genly Ai, an emissary on Winter, whose mission is to persuade the Gethenians to join the Ekumen. The world building in this book was phenomenal. The politics, religions, cultures and even dialect that we got to see through the book were fascinating. It was really interesting that all of the people on this planet were ambisexual and to see how Ai understands them. I really enjoyed getting the POV from one of the natives of this planet as well. I do think some of the pacing was too slow for me so that’s why I didn’t love this more. I understand that this isn’t supposed to be super plot heavy though, so that’s just a personal preference. But I love a good study on humans (or aliens) and humanity/connection in general and this was a great look at that!