books 2007: Powers, by Ursula K. Le Guin / giving up on The Expected One

[supercheesegirl]

Oh, I love Le Guin. This book is third in a YA series of hers that I'm really enjoying. There's definitely some dark stuff in this book--the hero's sister gets raped and murdered and the man responsible goes unpunished because she's a slave girl--but I think this hero is the best one yet in this series. It's a really good series, and I like the recurring characters and themes.

I've spent the last few days reading The Expected One, by Kathleen McGowan. It's a total Da Vinci Code knockoff, which I knew when I bought it, but it's not compelling or even well written. I'm about halfway through and I could care less about the conspiracy theories or the main character or what startling revelations Mary Magdalene wrote in her super-secret Gospel. You know I don't give up on a book easily, but this just is not worth my time.

Hoping to cram in one more book before the new year!

Comments

[amedia.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love Le Guin.

Doesn't she rock? We visited used bookstores a few days ago and metherion scored his own copy of the original Earthsea trilogy (his dad read it to him many years ago), plus The Wind's Twelve Quarters and The Left Hand of Darkness, the former because it has an Earthsea story in it (and all the other stories are good too, of course) and the latter because I recommended it (no longer being a teenager, he actually listens to me). He also got The Dispossessed, which is the only one of her books I've used for a class (on utopias & dystopias at SU).

[supercheesegirl.livejournal.com]

I made F read The Left Hand of Darkness recently. I've read all of Earthsea and possibly most of her novels--there are some obscurer ones I haven't hunted down, but I think I've hit most of them.

This series is interesting because it deals a lot with power, and what it means to have power and to use it or misuse it. Many of the main characters have a supernatural power or gift; there's also a theme of slavery that recurs throughout the series, and people misusing power over others. It's all written on a YA level, so it's really accessible. The first one is Gifts, and I recommend all of them (of course!).