One of the genre's greatest writers. ( )

Orrec and Gry are teenagers in a world in which certain families are endowed with special gifts, or abilites, passed down through the generations. Orrec's gift is Undoing, which means that members of his family can destroy with a look and a word, while Gry's ability is communication with animals, which she is expected to use during the hunt to call animals to their death. Their world is governed by the constant fear that enemy clans will attack with their gifts, and so gifts are used as weapons and threats. Within this society, Orrec and Gry make the decision not to use their gifts and both face consequences for their decisions.
The surface story here is a good one, but I also loved it for the underlying themes: the difficulties of growing up with ideas that differ from those of the traditions of your family, the burden of rule and the hard decisions that come with it, and the danger of pride and anger. Definitely recommended, and the audio version is great, too. ( )

I read these books before when they first came out and always wanted to revisit the series as a whole -- it did not disappoint. One of the things I really love about Le Guin is the way she builds worlds: with day to day details, totally centered on the life of her characters. In some ways, each character is the world, and the story that plays out is the story of their day-to-day lives. I find it riveting to read. This series, with each novel set in a different part of the Western Shore and each main character shining in different ways, is a beautiful example of that kind of storytelling. There are big things that happen in these books! But they are grounded in context and situation and nuance.

I've been reading a lot of middle grade and YA lately. I've read a lot of fantasy in my day, and have been feeling kind of burnt out on it. I started the first story in this book and was completely enthralled almost at once, and the contrast between Le Guin's writing and the vast majority of the books I've read lately is stark and revealing. Incomparable storytelling.

Advanced Reader's Copy provided by Edelweiss. ( )

https://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2020/07/202090-gifts-ursula-le-guin.html ( )

The more I read Le Guin, the more I am struck by her depth and skill at telling stories. I read this looking for a YA novel that had more nuance to it than much of the commercial fiction my grandchildren read, and Le Guin did not disappoint me. Sending this first volume out to two of them, and the remaining novels in this trilogy will become gifts for the grands as I read them. ( )