2022 book 89

 Ursula LeGuin's Gifts

I don’t see people talk much about LeGuin's Annals of the Western Shore series, a YA fantasy series she wrote later in life, but I’ve mentioned before that I’m dipping in and out of all the LeGuin I’ve never read and I was in the mood for a fantasy series, so here we are. I thought this was a strong first volume, about a bunch of families with capital-G Gifts, who live up in the mountains and are isolated and have their own societal rules etc. The narrator is a young blind boy from a family with the power of undoing (very unpleasant), and his best friend is a girl who can communicate with animals (amazing). And it’s the story of his life, how his mother taught him to love stories, about love and grief and companion animals. There are some grisly parts but on the whole this was just a really engrossing and comforting book (needed just now in the world). A/A-.