It took me a month to read this tiny book. What a slog. I picked this up for the 2015 Book Bingo Blackout challenge I did for the "Unfinished" category, which required the participant to finish a book they had left incomplete in the past. Well, I had tried to read this a couple times in middle school, and couldn't get into it. I figured this would be an easy pick for the challenge as a YA novel. I was so wrong. I should've trusted my middle school self and just not even tried. 
 This book is so dry and dull, and the way the tale is told puts a lot of distance between the reader and the story. Le Guin also seems to throw a bunch of random magic and fantastic-sounding words at the reader with little explanation or reason. This is the third Le Guin book I've tried to read and the only one I've completed (and I only managed that to fulfill the requirements of the challenge). She is not the author for me.