Ursula Le Guin was a genius, and this novel isn't anywhere near the top of her game. It has some clunky bits, and a point of view on humans and conformity that comes off cliché and isn't the best expression of one of her recurring themes: the relationships between exceptional people and the societies they have to live in, which inevitably include a lot of people on a different wavelength.

That said, this is a beautiful, immersive story that I loved as a teenager and still love now. It's very eloquent about the way great ideas and music and literature can strike the teenage mind with titanic force, and about how lost you can be as a young person trying to grow, until you find your people and find yourself. Set in rainy Portland where I live now.