The ending was all too sudden, and the resolution wasn’t as satisfying as I hoped it would be. What I did dislike was a climax that felt somewhat rushed. All the character work is nothing short of excellent, truly, and I am beyond excited to read more for that reason alone. This work also examines the relationships between parents and children, between cultural gaps, and more. Loss and grief also play a great part in the plot, and in writing about them, Ursula shows uncanny skill and her own deep understanding of these complex themes. What Le Guin does with our protagonist (the story is told in the first-person view) is, she goes really in-depth inside the mind of a boy–a young man–who possesses such a dark and final power, and what the ability to kill with such ease does to him. The Uplanders are a tough lot - different gifts run in the different bloodlines, and some of them are thoroughly horrific, like Orrec’s own family gift of ‘unmaking,’ which allows the gifted in the family to unmake creatures with a look, a gesture, a whispered word. Gifts tells the deeply personal story of a young boy called Orrec, and his coming to terms with the deadly gift that runs in his bloodline, as well as his’ and his family’s place in the Uplander society. It took me…four, maybe five hours to finish from start to end. The pages ran out all too quickly, almost as if the ink itself flowed within me as I consumed this tiny tome in a single morning. I always thought I’d start with Earthsea if not for a serendipitous occasion in my new university library thanks to which I stumbled upon this, a short 280-page first part of a trilogy by the name of ‘Annals of the Western Shore.’

I’ve been meaning to explore the great Ursula Le Guin’s writing for a few years, now.

Gifts by Ursula K. Le Guin