Rating: 
Summary: Reading Tehanu
Review: My nine-year-old and I chose the Earthsea cycle as part of our "waiting for Harry Potter" strategy this year, having reread the first 3 of those books repeatedly. I was at first put off by the style, but as my son became more and more involved, the characters and story won me over. We had to revivify the poor little otak, however: its death was too much for a 4th grader. Now, having read the Amazon reviews of Tehanu, I read it myself first to see if it would be too much for him. I have chosen to read it to him aloud, editing as I go along, so that some of the rougher stuff is left out, but I know he will love the writing and the characters, the dragons and the danger, even though it's basically about a couple of old folks stumbling along. His parents are a couple of old folks stumbling along with a magical kid, too: I think he'll relate just fine, even if Ged has no literal magic, even if Tenar has no overt powers. And for myself, I absolutely adored the book: how rare it is that a fantasy cycle can mature as gracefully and truly as this set of stories has done! I'll be sorry to finish it: a hard act to follow, even for Harry Potter.
Rating: 
Summary: It doesnt wholly deserve such a bad rating.....
Review: The problem with this book isnt that it is a bad book - it is a good, well-written, feminist story in its own right. The problem is: Why did LeGuin feel the need to tear down one of the best fantasy trilogies to get a feminist point across? This book would be better as a story all its own separate from the original books. If one can get past the fact that this book is actually a part of the Earthsea Trilogy, and how different it is from the others, then it would have gotten a four-to-five star rating. Therefore I would recommend it for anyone who hasnt developed a love and sympathy for the original characters. But as for me, a reader of the original trilogy, I simply couldnt ignore how out of place this book was and felt compelled to give the story a low rating. For me, it remains the Earthsea TRILOGY.
Rating:
Summary: Bad
Review: Ignore all those people who have said this book is a mature philosophical work about women. I do not deny that Miss Le Guin is an astounding writer but the truth of the matter is the Earthsea Trilogy does not need this tacked on, pointless little book. The characters from the previous books are not shown as broken down and dispirited as they are not remotely the characters from the previous books. What Le Guin has written is a turgid, kitchen sink drama about a couple that live on a farm with some child abuse and sex thrown in. There is none of the magic of the first three books and this book is simply not worth reading. Avoid at all costs.
Rating: 
Summary: What Happened?
Review: Ursula Le Guin is my favorite author and A Wizard of Earthsea is my favorite book, so what happened with Tehanu? I loved all the books in the trilogy. They were amazing, but Tehanu is a very disappointing end to a great thing. I think Le Guin should've quit while she was ahead because I could have done without Tehanu.
Rating:
Summary: Hooray for female magic; but slow and repetitive reading
Review: While I liked the fact that LeGuin finally got around to showing that women too can have magic and power, she was really slow about it. To my mind, Tenar's internal musings and thought processes (which occupy a HUGE portion of this book) are interesting and important to the story, but repetitive. LeGuin could have gotten her point across in 25 fewer pages of going round and round in Tenar's head. Plus, unlike the trilogy, I could always tell where this book was going. Zero surprises, since LeGuin provides a series of hints that are repeated over and over again. Are we supposed to get the feeling that female magic, though not weak nor wicked, is dull?Seeing Ged powerless is sad, but seeing him so self-pitying and whining is incongruous. What happened to his wise detachment and acceptance of "come what will"? Did he only have the strength to accept because he had the power (unused) to change? If so, what a preachy hypocrite he was in the trilogy! Eventually he gains humanity and happiness, but only in the last few pages is there some hint that he has achieved any kind of balance or dignity. Unlike some of the reviews here, I can live with his reduction to magic-lessness because we anticipate the rise of an even greater magic in another. But this book was SUCH slow reading.
Rating:
Summary: An Unfortunate Turning
Review: This book is an unfortunate ending to a really excellent and imaginative trilogy. It's very disturbing to have a character (Ged) whom you liked and respected robbed of any dignity and reduced to a whining loser who can see no better way than to wallow in self-pity and scrabble around in the dirt and herd the goats. Why did the heroine abandon what she was offered--learning and wisdom that might have helped improve the world--to become a boring housewife? Only the dragons maintain their original charm. This is supposed to be a great feminist novel. Well, please note that the positive social change here is still in the hands of a man--the young king. A very sad progression on the part of the author.
Rating:
Summary: Either excellent (5) or horrible (1), and that's the problem
Review: This story is so hard to rate, because it is excellent - the writing is so much more personal and deep than in the previous books in the trilogy. If you are looking at the technical parts of the story, Tehanu is much better than the beginning stories, and you will go back to the first trilogy, read it and wonder why she couldn't have made the style more like it. It is an good starting point for people who are not accustomed to fantasy, or who like reality to have a place in a fairy tale. The problem that everyone has with this book, in my opinion, is how harsh it is, how human the characters. We who loved the first book will be shocked and dismayed at how frail and... and real our heroes have become. Ged without magic, and utterly without power really hurts to read about. Reading these characters, after having loved who they were, is like having your dreams shattered. The magic is torn brutally out of the fairy tale, and what we have left isn't pleasant. I kept reading the story only because I was certain Le Guin wouldn't let what was once a beloved story for adults and children alike become such a hard, ugly story about life and pain and hope. She just couldn't, but she did. Reading a fantasy in which your heroes are broken and humbled is almost as frightening as watching your parents cry, or seeing what was once a beloved place be torn down to make something like a freeway, black and ugly and full of smog. I kept wishing for the dream that was clear and innocent and beautiful in the first books to come back, but it never did. And though some people might laugh at me for being so childish, I think that the reason we all loved the first books was that it was so much a story that included our fairy tale champions, the characters that we could love both as children and adults, that we could share with our kids. And it gave us these characters without giving the story a predictable, black-and-white cut-and-dry plot. Our heroes made mistakes, and were sometimes foolish and stubborn, which made them all the more treasured and endearing. Tehanu is hard and painful and too real to be connected with the first books. The reason, to me at least, for reading fantasy is not to see life, which is frequently harsh and oppresive and can be cruel with its promises, but to see hope and beauty and dignity which is all too rare in our world. There are enough stories of grief and suffering out there as it is, in stories and out of them. Adults who have never read and loved the first books might like this story. They might see it as a superb example of life, exhausting and petty and cruel at times, being brought into a field of books which normally contains simple, predictable, happy endings of good over bad. And it does, but in my opinion the fairy tale and innocence and fantasy were better left standing, not brought down and dragged in the dust and mire.
Rating:
Summary: Feminist Revision?
Review: I've seen a number of feminist reviews here. I suppose that's all well and good, and I applaud thought wherever it occurs. I just can't understand what would motivate Ms. LeGuin to geld one of my favorite, genuinely benevolent male characters in order to make her brutal-yet-fuzzy political statement. For that matter, I won't forgive her.
Rating:
Summary: decent book, but tarnishes the trilogy
Review: I first read this book when it was published, several years after reading the original trilogy, and quite liked it. However, when I later read all four books in a row, I found it quite painful. I think the author must have had some feminist doubts about her first books, which led her to write this one. However, I think the author misread her own work, and was too vindictive towards it. The earlier books were chauvinistic only in the incidental sense of being set in an old-fashioned world. The sexual innocence of the trilogy is part of its charm. I had no trouble identifying with Ged as a girl, because his identity as a male was not emphasized- he was a wizard, a hero, a human being, but not a man. To introduce the mushy complications of sex and gender politics into Earthsea is like dropping a crystal vase into a mud puddle.
Rating:
Summary: A great book though different from the firdst three.
Review: I admit that Tehanu has a different style than the first three books but I still enjoyed it throughly. Some consider this book feminist and think of it as trash. Those people (men) are chauvonist, blind, and stupid. I am a great fan of fantasy literature, and this is definately fantasy. There are just as many adventurous and cleverly thought out deeds in Tehanu as in the first trilogy, but Tehanu is a more mature piece. Just because it centers pon a woman people call it bad. This is one of the most down to earth fantsy books I've ever read. And by the way, I'm a guy.
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