Kat Kennedy's Reviews> Four Ways to Forgiveness

I think I may have found a new girl crush in Ursula K. Le Guin and her collection of four short stories, Four Ways To Forgiveness.

I never did like weak, insipid damsels in distress.


In fact, I think it is those very characteristics that cause me to pull away from and revile books like Fallen, Twilight and Hush Hush. It seems to me that in these books, nobody aspires to be anything more than Mrs. Cullen and to terrorize the local woodland creatures as some sort of gothic reverse of Snow White.


Fuck!

However, though I enjoy books like Bitten, The Mercy Thompson series, Chicagoland Vampires series and their ilk - I get annoyed that these chics have super strength and special powers etc. Do our chic heroines need super powers to be badass and totally incredible? Le Guin says not and shows you how awesome a chic can be without breaking out the shurikens and exploding powder even once.

So you can understand why I adored these four short stories about women so awesome that even awesome had to step back and appreciate them. Much like we might all want to appreciate Aunt Sarah who, like these women, marches to the beat of her own drum:


I want to meet Aunt Sarah and give her a girl power hug!

I think my favourite story was the first one as I felt that Yass had such a beautiful, strong and loving heart that I fell completely in love with her.

I also loved Rakam for her strength of character in surviving where ever she was and thriving in conditions I couldn't even imagine. Her ability to find love again with Havzhiva was so beautiful.

I enjoyed Solly for her dignified, authoritarian and energetic ways.

All three of these women were strong, sexual, thoughtful women who took the circumstances that they had and filled their lives with passion - whether that was work, a career a cause or a man or all three at once.

The men in this book, Abberkam, Teyeo and Havzhiva were fantastic. They were all strong without dominating, encroaching on or crowding the brilliance that each of these women had in their spirits. Instead they came alongside them and helped them shine brighter. I cannot express how much I love Le Guin for this.

Maybe I'm just vulnerable to this. When I worked full time, people treated me differently. As an employee for a cruise line whose job it was to organize their charitable donations to certains organizations, I found people treated me with respect and were happy to talk to me on an intellectual level. Then I had my son and suddenly at parties or social situations, I wasn't an intellectual individual anymore, I was Mrs. Kennedy. Housewife and mother.


No, I do not want to know about your fucking bake sale!

Does it matter that I'm an editor of manusripts for authors looking to be published or that I'm writing a novel of my own? No, as soon as they ask what I do for a living and I tell them that I'm a mother, their eyes glaze over and they assume that I don't have a legitimate opinion on the criminal justice system or batman or whatever the hell they're talking about.


I can contribute to the batman discussion, damnit!

Le Guin, I tip my hat to you! A spectacularly crafted read!