This book is for children but it doesn't shy away from torture and rape and politics. There's no heroic last stand, there's negotiation and compromise. Like Diana Wynne Jones, it treats children as intelligent readers and things are alluded to and not always fully explained.

If I were a child then I would love this but as an adult it was quite slow, it's pretty tense sometimes and thankfully (like Tolkien) there's no fight scenes.
There's some incredibly beautiful poetry in it.

This was my first book from Le Guin and I would like to read more, it's very Terry Pratchett vibes - far less silly but always a lesson in morality.