Lillelara

Has anyone of you watched the movie Avatar and thought the same thing as I did: “It´s worth watching the movie because of its visual style but the story is one of the lamest I ever had to sit through in a cinema.” Leave it to Ursula K. Le Guin to write almost the same story and make it an interesting one out of it. I guess she could write an essay about the telephone book and I would be enthralled by it.

What I realized about Le Guin´s writing is:

• she does an incredibly job in creating the world in which her story is set in.
• she has the most wonderful way of writing about interspecies friendships. In both “The Left Hand of Darkness” and “The Word for World is Forest” there is a pair of human and alien, who are forming a friendship despite their differences and I feel like the pages are radiating a warmth whenever I´m reading about these friendships.
• I love how subtle her commentaries on social issues come across in her books. Whether it being the criticism of the Vietnam War (which Mike Finn – Audiobook Addict kindly told me this book is) or gender issues in “The Left Hand of Darkness”, as a reader I never feel whacked over the head by Le Guin´s views.  

As you might tell, I loved this book. It´s 128 pages of a highly immersive and spellbinding story and I loved how the ending packed such a punch. Highly recommended.

I´ve read this book for the 24 tasks as a book, that has green on the cover