I waver between Tombs of Atuan and Tehanu as my favourite Earthsea, but I think Tehanu wins, particularly these days when I'm much closer in age to older Tenar than the teenager she was in Tombs.

The power in Tehanu for me has always been the devastating and unflinching way it articulated how (in many ways) awful it is to be a woman: that you will work unceasingly and people won't even recognise it as work, or as necessary and important (because it takes place in the home), that it's highly likely you will experience abuse at the hands of men, and people will shrug it aside, or blame you — and that in spite of all this, life would have joy, and value, and purpose, and meaningful connections. I remember reading the book for the first time as a teenage girl, and taking all this in, and kind of mentally bracing myself: okay, it was likely that my future would hold some or all of this awful stuff, but now I was warned, and prepared, and even if I couldn't avoid it, it was something that I could survive.

It's an unbelievably accomplished book.