The first book I've read for my 2013 Shelf-Sitter Reading Challenge is Voices by Ursula K. LeGuin. I actually finished it over a month ago, but have slacked on writing a quick review.
LeGuin is one of my Top Five Favorite Authors of All Time, so I was really looking forward to this book. I enjoyed Gifts, the first book in the "Annals of the Western Shore" series, and I liked the way Voices was connected to the first story through the now middle-aged characters of Orrec and Gry, and yet was a completely separate book with a very different protagonist. LeGuin's Fantasy novels don't speak to me the way her Science Fiction ones do, but I still read them shaking my head in wonder at her mastery. This is LeGuin at the top of her game: the worldbuilding is so thorough, the characters so well-drawn, and the tone so utterly free of false steps, I can lose myself in the story and believe that it's all real.
Although this book is shelved in the YA section, I don't see LeGuin "dumbing down" her themes or writing style in the slightest. The only thing that makes the Annals of the Western Shore books "YA" is the age of the protagonists.
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