Cashore, Kristin: Graceling
Graceling
Writer: Kristin Cashore
Genre: YA/Fantasy
Pages: 471
I can't remember where I first heard about this book, but I suspect it was in one of the book blogs I follow. The cover caught my eye immediately, as did the very different UK cover, and it was enough to make me look up the book on Amazon and pick it up when I had the chance.
The premise: Katsa is feared for her Grace. A Grace is a natural, innate, almost magical talent to do something, and Katsa's is feared most of all: her Grace is to kill. She hates her nature, hates her uncle who exploits her nature, and hates the life she's forced to lead because of her nature.
Then she meets Po, another Graceling, and things start to change. His grandfather has been kidnapped, and he needs Katsa's help. To do so, she must reevaluate everything she's ever believed about the world and herself, and to win, she's got to defeat a foe who's got a power even greater than hers.
Spoilers ahead.
The very, very beginning was bumpy: we're dropped into the middle of a rescue without any sense of what's going on or why, and at the start, Katsa just seems like your typical man-with-boobs kick-ass heroine. You know, the impossible girl to who defeat impossible odds for no reason at all? Yeah, that girl. But it becomes pretty clear as you read on that this isn't the case. Katsa was born with the innate ability to fight and skill, and her uncle, the King, has made sure she's honed her abilities over the years so he can put them to his own use. She doesn't enjoy this power: she truly believes what most people at the court (and outside of it) think of her: she's a savage animal, a wildcat, a beast on a leash. She's her uncle's tool and nothing more, and she's tired of it.
Meeting Po is changes that. In Po she recognizes the possibility of true friendship, because he too is Graced with fighting. Here's someone who can take her in hand-to-hand combat, who isn't afraid of telling her what he thinks, and who helps her take down her walls one brick at a time. Of course, they're falling in love with each other, but Cashore is smart: neither one of them know it, and Katsa, who's hardly used to friendship, let alone the possibility of love, takes a long time to recognize what her feelings really are.
There's some really, really interesting messages in this novel. For starters, Katsa adamantly refuses to marry and have children. She's turned away dozens of suitors, even her friend Giddon, who truly loves her, despite the fact he carries a serious misconception of who she is and what she'll be as his wife. Katsa's decision, her refusal to marry any man or bear any children, is touched on through-out the book and handled in interesting ways. For starters, she learns she can love a man without loosing herself, without consenting to marriage. Making Katsa and Po lovers was risky, but perfect. It's clear in this society that marriage is THE SOLUTION when you're in love, and clearly sex outside marriage just isn't accepted, and yet that's the lifestyle Katsa chooses once she's able to get a grip on her feelings for Po.
Her response towards children doesn't change during the book either, but the plot is sneaky in that it forces Katsa to rescue the child Princess Bitterblue from the hands of her really sleazy, scary dad whose words are literally poison. He can make anyone believe anything he wants them to, just by speaking. Katsa must get Bitterblue to the safety of Po's family (the little girl is his cousin), and I found it interesting that for a woman who refuses to have children to be forced into helping this little girl and keep her alive.
There's actually a lot that's interesting about this book, and rather natural. Bitterblue is an odd, unusual child who doesn't act or speak like a ten-year-old (then again, she witnessed her father murder her mother) and is quick to pick up on Katsa's and Po's instructions on survival. And that's another interesting thing: it turns out Katsa's Grace isn't killing at all, but survival, which the entire plot hinges on. Nicely played.
I liked Po quite a bit, and the relationship between him and Katsa was strong and natural. The way Cashore handles his true Grace (the ability to read minds, in a way) is well done. It provides a rather subtle conflict on many levels through-out the book. And I love how this secret is the trigger that enables Katsa to kill King Leck, though that scene happened so quickly it was almost anti-climatic. Yet the book continued, building character while winding down: no main character emerges unscathed. I like how Po has had to struggle after losing his sight, and I thought his ring became a rather nice symbol. I love how Katsa transformed so completely from beginning to end, and I enjoyed the world-building on the whole quite a bit. My only real complaint in that regard is that the names got rather confusing at times; even with a map I was having trouble keeping them all straight. Then there's the names of the people: Bitterblue is just an ODD name for a little girl, and every time I read the name Katsa, I thought of the German word for cat, katze.
My Rating
Worth the Cash: yes, I say that even though it's in hardcover in the US. This book features a strong, believable heroine who actually grows and changes during the course of the story. The pages read quickly, the characters are enjoyable, and for a while it felt like there's more internal conflict that external conflict, there's never a want of something tense going on. I also am fascinated by some of the messages Cashore is promoting, both the traditional (girls shouldn't have to be Graced to know how to defend themselves) and nontraditional (Katsa's absolute refusal to marry and have children, and how she discovers that's okay), which I think makes this a YA epic fantasy worth promoting, especially for girls. It might be unfair to compare this book to Stephenie Meyer's Twilight since they're such completely different TYPES of fantasy, but I will say this: Katsa is a much stronger heroine than I imagine Bella ever will be (I've not read further than Twilight), because Katsa knows how to take care of herself and doesn't need to rely on someone else to save her. That's a good message, but also important, this is just a good story with solid fantasy and a solid romance. I can't wait to get my hands on the rest of Cashore's books, but it looks like I'm going to have to wait a year, as that's when the prequel to this book comes out.
Next up:
Sorry folks, you're gonna get spammed. I picked up the rest of Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire series and I've got two down and four to go. Expect a LOT of reviews in the coming week, because boy, those books read fast.
But in case you're counting:
Reviews:
Living Dead in Dallas and Club Dead
Reading Now:
Dead to the World
If you're not an urban fantasy fan or a Charlaine Harris fan, I beg your forgiveness for the coming onslaught of reviews. By time I'm done with what I've got of the series, I'll probably be so tired of urban fantasy that I'll need to read something very, very different, so hopefully I can make it up to you then. :)