A review by thejestess
Gifts by Ursula K. Le Guin

4.0

Engaging once I remembered how to read books like this, with a nicely fleshed out world and nice narrative voice. I am not great at subtext so I'm sure there's stuff I didn't get the full picture of, but I'm likely going to read the rest of the trilogy 

The mother miscarried and later dies because she is probably cursed (although it is never made explicitly clear in the text), there is grieving, and later the father dies while trying to defend against a raiding party. There's also the death of a number of animals - it isn't a happy world, and it doesn't shy away from that