Stepping from the Shadows

Stepping from the Shadows, Patricia McKillip. This was not any of the things I am supposed to be reading - I still have two Hugo categories where I am way behind - but I had for some impulsive reason put in a library hold for it instead of just putting it on my to-read list, and then it showed up, so what could I do. I really liked it - it's not exactly fantasy, but it's a realistic (and probably semiautobiographical) coming of age story told in a way with fantastic/surrealistic/magically realistic elements, and the writing is gorgeous. I am not very familiar with McKillip - I read the Riddle-Master trilogy when I was a teen, I'm pretty sure, and maybe Forgotten Beasts of Eld? or Changeling Sea? But I remember nothing about any of them. This book was like reading Le Guin, the specificity, the richness of the language, the clarity of the emotional conflicts that are the heart of the story (or here, pretty much the entirety... this is not a book with plot, especially). I'm really glad I happened to see my friend's rec for it when McKillip passed away earlier this year.