amberogi 's review for:

Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective sad tense 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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 This book was absolutely incredible and hands down my favorite in the series. The main characters were mostly female which is incredibly refreshing for fantasy, especially considering it released in 1990. I also really appreciated Ursula's afterword regarding the social and political themes in the series and how she needed time to experience her own life as a woman before writing from an older woman's perspective.

What I enjoy most in these books are the words of wisdom spoken between various characters as they have discussions on many aspects of their own lives and the world at large. This book in particular had some really fantastic exchanges between Tenar, Moss, Therru, Ged, and Arren, the ones with Tenar, Moss, and Therru being my favorites.

This whole series is great and one I've been meaning to read for a long time. I binge-listened to the first four books in the past two months (about to start Tales from Earthsea), watched the Studio Ghibli adaptation of Tales from Earthsea, and I have no regrets. There's so much heart here, and personally that's the main ingredient I look for in good fantasy writing and writing in general. ❤

Side note since this was an audiobook- the narrator, Jenny Sterlin, did a wonderful job especially with Therru's voice. I wish she narrated them all!