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A review by elenajohansen
Gifts by Ursula K. Le Guin
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
A rare miss for me from Le Guin. I don't require all my fiction to be fast-paced or action-packed, but this was glacially slow, on top of having an odd structure where most of the book was essentially an extended flashback, on top of having all characters who weren't the protagonist be functionally one-dimensional.
I kept going, hoping it would get better because the reason I was reading this at all was that I found the second book in the series, Voices, at a secondhand shop and thought "Le Guin that I haven't read yet? Sold!" without realizing it was a second book at all. But the start to this series was so disappointing I'm going to re-donate Voices unread.
I never found much of anything to care about; the story is yet another coming-of-age for a teenage boy with unusual powers, and Orrec is no Ged.
I kept going, hoping it would get better because the reason I was reading this at all was that I found the second book in the series, Voices, at a secondhand shop and thought "Le Guin that I haven't read yet? Sold!" without realizing it was a second book at all. But the start to this series was so disappointing I'm going to re-donate Voices unread.
I never found much of anything to care about; the story is yet another coming-of-age for a teenage boy with unusual powers, and Orrec is no Ged.