Graceling

!!!Spoiler Warning!!! If you haven’t read this book yet, I give away some key spoilers!

Graceling

by Kristin Cashore

This is decent enough fantasy book, with a strong female main character and an adorable love interest.
There isn’t really anything groundbreaking in this one, it’s much the same as a lot of other YA books, and I have to admit I did get a little bored from time to time, but there’s nothing much not to like either.
I quite enjoyed the main story line.

Katsa, a man would be a fool to try to keep you in a cage.

The story follows Katsa, a young lady who is ‘graced’. To be graced means that you’re incredibly good at something, such as predicting the weather, healing, archery, or in Katsa’s case—killing people. She is bullied into becoming a living weapon for her uncle, the king, and absolutely hates the cards she’s been dealt in life. Finally, she plucks up the courage to tell her uncle “no“, and then she sets off on a real adventure with her new friend/love interest, Po.
Po is a young prince of a peaceful kingdom, and he’s pretty much smitten with Katsa from the moment she knocked him unconscious on a raid of a neighboring kingdom. He’s an absolute pleasure, with good humor, sarcastic comments and a genuine need to make people happy. He’s a great character.
Together they’re trying to uncover a plot in which Po’s grandfather was kidnapped, and the truth leads them places that are pretty unexpected. I really liked how it all played out. Even the villain was a good one.

You’re the most powerful person I’ve ever met. You can do whatever you want, whatever you want in the world.

My main problem with this book was the fact that I felt as though the author was telling me everything, rather than showing me things. The only time I felt real emotion from the characters was towards the end when Po isn’t quite himself. Other than that, I felt as though the rest of the writing was pretty flat.
I’ve heard a bit about how this is a feminist novel, and although the lead character is a strong, independent woman, I really didn’t get that vibe here. Sure, she’s not really impressed by dresses, and has no interest in marrying or having children, but I felt as though they were personal choices unique to Katsa. I certainly didn’t feel as though Katsa, or the author, were trying to force these sorts of decisions on women, which is an issue I seem to have heard about with this book.
The only other thing I think I should mention here is Katsa’s anger issues. At one point she just lets loose and punches Po in his face. She apologizes and says she expected him to defend himself against her attack, but it did seem like quite a large red flag to me. I mean, if this had been the other way around and Po had struck Katsa in the face, everyone would be saying he’s an abuser, but Katsa gets away with it because she’s a woman. That’s not equality, that’s just wrong. Nobody should get away with hitting anyone in anger.

When a monster stopped behaving like a monster, did it stop being a monster? Did it become something else?

In the end, I thought this was a pretty solid story, but I didn’t much click with it myself. I don’t think I’ll be continuing the series, but if you enjoy strong female leads, and sprawling kingdoms that need saving, this might be right up your street.

Villain Rating

Finally, we have a pretty clear cut villain, and he’s quite a good one too! King Leck of Monsea is a great character. First we have his backstory, he was a lost little child wearing ragged clothes and an eyepatch, but he told such wonderful stories that eventually the childless king and queen of Monsea adopted him as their own and made him their heir. They both died shortly afterwards.

It’s made clear that Leck killed them. It turns out this guy is graced with the power to make anyone believe anything he says, no matter what a huge lie it is. He removed his own eye because he didn’t want anyone to know he had a grace. Bad ass. He shoots his wife and makes his men believe that it was an accident, and he’s after his child daughter because he has an horrible appetite for hurting little girls. He also injures animals for fun. There’s no low this guy won’t stoop to. He’s also pretty good with the banter. You just can’t help but hate this guy. He’s a great villain. 8/10

Happy Reading,

Claire