Books I've read lately:Shakespeare's Wife,Mary Roach,Robin McKinley,Bill Bryson,Graceling
I've been able to read quite a few books now after having got my Kindle 2. At the hairdresser, during the occasional spare moment and in particular during the travelling with the Canadian and his parents - we had a lot of airport time and flying time in which I could catch up on reading.
These were Shakespeare's Wife by Germaine Greer, A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach, Chalice by Robin McKinley and 3 books by Jodi Picoult (19 Minutes, The Plain Truth and Mercy).
Some comments below - some mildly spoilery comments but nothing drastic.
I mentioned that the first book I read was Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson which was incredibly interesting. That led me on to read Shakespeare's Wife by Germaine Greer which was excellent. As some have pointed out, it's not quite so much about Ann Hathaway as painting a picture of what the world was like Stratford at that time, particularly for women. Greer describes what Shakespeare might have experienced in London, what his relationship might have been like with Ann, what Ann's life might have been like in Stratford. We know so little, so Greer speculates a little but mostly leaves us to speculate and draw our own conclusions. It's a very fascinating book and I can't recommend it enought.
Then during my trip, I read A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson
Blurb: The Appalachian Trail trail stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America-majestic mountains, silent forests, sparking lakes. If you’re going to take a hike, it’s probably the place to go. And Bill Bryson is surely the most entertaing guide you’ll find. He introduces us to the history and ecology of the trail and to some of the other hardy (or just foolhardy) folks he meets along the way-and a couple of bears.
Already a classic, A Walk in the Woods will make you long for the great outdoors (or at least a comfortable chair to sit and read in).
My brief thoughts: I adore Bryson's way of writing - it's very light-hearted and he takes the mickey out of himself as much as out of everyone else around him. I enjoyed his growing friendship with the originally unlovable Katz, I adored his appalled descriptions of how incredibly dangerous the woods can be - particularly the bear attacks and the various ways that one could die. As someone who is just NOT an outdoorsy, nature-loving, camping person, I really enjoyed READING about his adventures. I'm tempted to re-read this book although there are still a lot of other Bryson books I still want to read :)
A while back, I read an odd book by Mary Roach called Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers and found it very interesting.
Her book Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife wasn't very good unfortunately - quite lacklustre by comparison, but I decided to read Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex.
Blurb: Roach is not like other science writers. She doesn't write about genes or black holes or Schrödinger's cat. Instead, she ventures out to the fringes of science, where the oddballs ponder how cadavers decay (in her debut, Stiff) and whether you can weigh a person's soul (in Spook). Now she explores the sexiest subject of all: sex, and such questions as, what is an orgasm? How is it possible for paraplegics to have them? What does woman want, and can a man give it to her if her clitoris is too far from her vagina?
At times the narrative feels insubstantial and digressive (how much do you need to know about inseminating sows?), but Roach's ever-present eye and ear for the absurd and her loopy sense of humor make her a delectable guide through this unesteemed scientific outback.
The payoff comes with subjects like female orgasm (yes, it's complicated), and characters like Ahmed Shafik, who defies Cairo's religious repressiveness to conduct his sex research. Roach's forays offer fascinating evidence of the full range of human weirdness, the nonsense that has often passed for medical science and, more poignantly, the extreme lengths to which people will go to find sexual satisfaction.
My brief thoughts: Although not quite as funny as Bryson, Mary Roach does have a very light-hearted way about her and the way she writes about sex and sexuality is quite funny because she refuses to take things seriously. Some of her descriptions of various surgeries and the staggering things that men do to themselves to make themselves more protuberant are quite hilarious, if horrific :D I wouldn't say I recommend this book - but it was certainly an interesting read.
I adore Robin McKinley, but my view is that I've not loved anything as much as her Damar series, Beauty and The Outlaws of Sherwood. The book Chalice, has moments of beauty and warmth reminiscent of Beauty and Deerskin.
Blurb: Everywhere she goes, Mirasol, beekeeper and new Chalice of Willowlands, hears laments from magical beings and humans alike about their broken world, which has never been in such crisis. The previous Master and his Chalice, killed in a fire, had abused their responsibility. Now the new Master has arrived home after his training as a Priest of Fire, no longer human and unable to touch without burning. With enemies on every border, and the land itself trembling, Mirasol must find a way to bind the Master to her land.
McKinley integrates the world building smoothly into a narrative that is a sensory delight, laden with tangible tastes and scents. Themes of stewardship, beekeeping, and the power of duty and love flow through the story like the honey described so temptingly.
There are a few too many convoluted sentences, but the power of the story eases the sting. McKinley fans will recognize in Mirasol a typically strong heroine who discovers her impressive powers as she finds her way.
My brief thoughts: The book is far too short - I would have enjoyed a story that lingered more, but nonetheless this book does have a certain familiar feel to it in the sense that it evokes the warm descriptiveness of McKinley's earlier writings. As someone who is a bit terrified of bees, all of the detailed descriptions of being swarmed by bees was a bit disconcerting, but I do love honey so the honey descriptions were nice.
I've now read 3 novels by Jodi Picoult.
19 Minutes
Blurb: Bestseller Picoult (My Sister's Keeper) takes on another contemporary hot-button issue in her brilliantly told new thriller, about a high school shooting. Peter Houghton, an alienated teen who has been bullied for years by the popular crowd, brings weapons to his high school in Sterling, N.H., one day and opens fire, killing 10 people.
Flashbacks reveal how bullying caused Peter to retreat into a world of violent computer games. Alex Cormier, the judge assigned to Peter's case, tries to maintain her objectivity as she struggles to understand her daughter, Josie, one of the surviving witnesses of the shooting. The author's insights into her characters' deep-seated emotions brings this ripped-from-the-headlines read chillingly alive.
My brief thoughts: The first of the Picoult books I read, I did find it a little weak. There were times when I felt that the writing was just plain bad and I was tempted to stop reading. Nonetheless, the storyline was compelling and I did find myself wanting to know what was going to happen next and why Peter did the things he did. Singapore Girl II recommended this book to me and her comment to me was good:
At the end of the novel, the shooter's mother said, "Everyone would remember Peter for nineteen minutes of his life, but what about the other nine million?" It's quite sad (not sure if you want to read a sad book) and it seemlessly moves from the perspectives of different people. The world is not as black and white as we would like it to be. While reading it, I could feel the anguish suffered by Peter's mother when she realised that she raised a monster and yet, she couldnt simply stop loving him because you just can't stop loving your children even when the world sees them as a monster.
I did find it very thought-provoking, much as I DID think about the shooter's family during the Virginia Tech shootings and wonder at the hell they must be suffering.
The Plain Truth
Blurb: Though it begins as the quietly electrifying story of an unmarried Amish teenager who gives birth to a baby she is accused of then smothering, Picoult's latest (after Keeping Faith) settles into an ordinary trial epic, albeit one centered intriguingly on an Amish dairy farm near Lancaster, Pa.
Katie Fisher, 18, denies not only having committed the murder but even having borne the baby, whose body is found in the Fishers' calving pen, and she sticks to her story, even when she is quizzed by Ellie Hathaway, the high-powered Philadelphia attorney who undertakes Katie's defense as a favor to Leda, an aunt she and the young woman share.
Ellie, who has retreated to Leda's farm in Paradise to reconsider her life--she successfully defends guilty clients--embarks on the case reluctantly: at 39, she wants nothing more than to have a child. However, to meet bail stipulations, she volunteers as Katie's guardian (since Kate's strict parents reject her) and moves in with the Fishers.
Living with the Amish necessitates some adjustments for both parties, but Katie and Ellie become fast friends in spite of their differences. Very little action occurs beyond the initial setup, though the questions remain: Who was the father of Katie's child? And did she smother the newborn?
Told from both third-person omniscient and first-person (Ellie's) vantages, the story rolls leisurely through the trial preparations, the results of which are repeated, tediously, in the courtroom.
Perhaps the story's quietude is appropriate, given its magnificently painted backdrop and distinctive characters, but one can't help wishing that the spark igniting the book's opening pages had built into a full-fledged blaze.
My brief thoughts: I thought that this was rather better written than 19 Minutes. I thought that the characters of Ellie and Katie were very well-written. Ellie was so very obsessed with having children and Katie was so cold and disassociated. I also found the descriptions of Amish life extremely fascinating although a great deal of what was in this book, was extremely reminiscent of a Cold Case episode called Running Around which was about the case of a a missing Amish girl who was murdered while she was in Philadelphia experiencing the Amish rite of passage called "rumspringa". Although the primary storylines are different, the storylines in both the book and the Cold Case episode have rumspringa, have an older male character who has been 'shunned', have an illicit pregnancy, have the mother play a pivotal role and also have descriptions of Amish life.
Mercy
Blurb: The setting is Wheelock, Mass., a slightly eccentric town where most of the residents are of Scottish descent, where weddings end in a blood vow, the name MacDonald is "painted on an alarming number of mailboxes" and police chief Cameron MacDonald doubles as clan chief and protector.
On a seemingly ordinary day in Wheelock, Jamie MacDonald, a cousin of Cameron's, drives to the police station and announces: "My wife here, Maggie, is dead, and I'm the one who killed her." Cam finds himself saddled with a murder case and a conflict of interest: his cousin has given in to the pleas of his cancer-ravaged wife to kill her, and he's come to the clan chief to confess. But as police chief, Cam must also prosecute.
On the same day, Cam's wife, Allie, the local florist, hires Mia, a violet-eyed beauty with a genius for flower arranging. Allie gets involved in Jamie's case, and Cam, who has spent his life in service to his community and his clan, falls in love with Mia and begins an affair that will bring his marriage to the breaking point and change it profoundly.
Like Jamie, Allie is the marriage partner who loves more. "It's never fifty-fifty," says Jamie. As Jamie's court case proceeds, Picoult plumbs the emotional core of both marriages. The pace of the trial is slow, but Picoult pays loving attention to her central characters, fashioning a sensitive exploration of the balance of love.
My brief thoughts: This novel was a bit painful. First of all, there was a very detailed description of cancer ravaging one of the characters which was extremely sad. Secondly, the book was about euthanasia/mercy killings. Thirdly, there was a contrast between an extremely loving couple and the relationship of Cameron MacDonald who is cheating on his wife Allie who absolutely adores him.
I hate infidelity and Picoult describes the infidelity and Cameron's elated feelings of love with incredibly meticulous detail making me absolutely hate Cameron and wishing that he'd go and die in a fire :P Lastly, Picoult poses the headache question of the nature of love. Jamie's wife towards the end of her life wants Jamie to kill her. In what he believes is an act of ultimate love - he smothers her with a pillow. Later on, he starts to question whether this was the right thing to do? Was it right for Maggie to have asked Jamie to do this knowing how much he adored her and how much he would suffer for it afterwards?
Does love mean blind obedience to the wishes of another? I couldn't help thinking that Maggie was selfish for her demands - for instance, she could have arranged to kill herself but she said she wanted to have Jamie's hands on her at her moment of death - even though she knew full well how he would be affected after her death. I know that it's awful to watch someone you love in pain, but presumably if Maggie had been unselfish, she would have asked Jamie to assist her rather than make him actually kill her.
I didn't really have any answers, but it was certainly a very thought-provoking book.
Graceling by Kristin Cashore
Blurb: If you had the power to kill with your bare hands, what would you do with it?
Graceling takes readers inside the world of Katsa, a warrior-girl in her late teens with one blue eye and one green eye. This gives her haunting beauty, but also marks her as a Graceling. Gracelings are beings with special talents-swimming, storytelling, dancing.
Katsa's Grace is considered more useful: her ability to fight (and kill, if she wanted to) is unequaled in the seven kingdoms. Forced to act as a henchman for a manipulative king, Katsa channels her guilt by forming a secret council of like-minded citizens who carry out secret missions to promote justice over cruelty and abuses of power.
Combining elements of fantasy and romance, Cashore skillfully portrays the confusion, discovery, and angst that smart, strong-willed girls experience as they creep toward adulthood. Katsa wrestles with questions of freedom, truth, and knowing when to rely on a friend for help. This is no small task for an angry girl who had eschewed friendships (with the exception of one cousin that she trusts) for her more ready skills of self-reliance, hunting, and fighting.
Katsa also comes to know the real power of her Grace and the nature of Graces in general: they are not always what they appear to be.
My brief thoughts: I haven't finished this book yet but am enjoying it a lot. Cashore writes in a manner that is very similar to early Robin McKinley and also Garth Nix (whom I adore). It's definitely one of those books about "girls who do things!"
When I started describing it to the Canadian he asked me: "Is it young adult fiction?"
Me: Yes, how did you know?
The Canadian: Because it's all about a young girl with super powers who can beat up all sorts of people including adults :)
I don't want to rush through this book because Cashore's next book in the series isn't out until September but it's very good so far so I suspect I'll be finishing it soon.
These were Shakespeare's Wife by Germaine Greer, A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach, Chalice by Robin McKinley and 3 books by Jodi Picoult (19 Minutes, The Plain Truth and Mercy).
Some comments below - some mildly spoilery comments but nothing drastic.
I mentioned that the first book I read was Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson which was incredibly interesting. That led me on to read Shakespeare's Wife by Germaine Greer which was excellent. As some have pointed out, it's not quite so much about Ann Hathaway as painting a picture of what the world was like Stratford at that time, particularly for women. Greer describes what Shakespeare might have experienced in London, what his relationship might have been like with Ann, what Ann's life might have been like in Stratford. We know so little, so Greer speculates a little but mostly leaves us to speculate and draw our own conclusions. It's a very fascinating book and I can't recommend it enought.
Then during my trip, I read A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson
Blurb: The Appalachian Trail trail stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America-majestic mountains, silent forests, sparking lakes. If you’re going to take a hike, it’s probably the place to go. And Bill Bryson is surely the most entertaing guide you’ll find. He introduces us to the history and ecology of the trail and to some of the other hardy (or just foolhardy) folks he meets along the way-and a couple of bears.
Already a classic, A Walk in the Woods will make you long for the great outdoors (or at least a comfortable chair to sit and read in).
My brief thoughts: I adore Bryson's way of writing - it's very light-hearted and he takes the mickey out of himself as much as out of everyone else around him. I enjoyed his growing friendship with the originally unlovable Katz, I adored his appalled descriptions of how incredibly dangerous the woods can be - particularly the bear attacks and the various ways that one could die. As someone who is just NOT an outdoorsy, nature-loving, camping person, I really enjoyed READING about his adventures. I'm tempted to re-read this book although there are still a lot of other Bryson books I still want to read :)
A while back, I read an odd book by Mary Roach called Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers and found it very interesting.
Her book Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife wasn't very good unfortunately - quite lacklustre by comparison, but I decided to read Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex.
Blurb: Roach is not like other science writers. She doesn't write about genes or black holes or Schrödinger's cat. Instead, she ventures out to the fringes of science, where the oddballs ponder how cadavers decay (in her debut, Stiff) and whether you can weigh a person's soul (in Spook). Now she explores the sexiest subject of all: sex, and such questions as, what is an orgasm? How is it possible for paraplegics to have them? What does woman want, and can a man give it to her if her clitoris is too far from her vagina?
At times the narrative feels insubstantial and digressive (how much do you need to know about inseminating sows?), but Roach's ever-present eye and ear for the absurd and her loopy sense of humor make her a delectable guide through this unesteemed scientific outback.
The payoff comes with subjects like female orgasm (yes, it's complicated), and characters like Ahmed Shafik, who defies Cairo's religious repressiveness to conduct his sex research. Roach's forays offer fascinating evidence of the full range of human weirdness, the nonsense that has often passed for medical science and, more poignantly, the extreme lengths to which people will go to find sexual satisfaction.
My brief thoughts: Although not quite as funny as Bryson, Mary Roach does have a very light-hearted way about her and the way she writes about sex and sexuality is quite funny because she refuses to take things seriously. Some of her descriptions of various surgeries and the staggering things that men do to themselves to make themselves more protuberant are quite hilarious, if horrific :D I wouldn't say I recommend this book - but it was certainly an interesting read.
I adore Robin McKinley, but my view is that I've not loved anything as much as her Damar series, Beauty and The Outlaws of Sherwood. The book Chalice, has moments of beauty and warmth reminiscent of Beauty and Deerskin.
Blurb: Everywhere she goes, Mirasol, beekeeper and new Chalice of Willowlands, hears laments from magical beings and humans alike about their broken world, which has never been in such crisis. The previous Master and his Chalice, killed in a fire, had abused their responsibility. Now the new Master has arrived home after his training as a Priest of Fire, no longer human and unable to touch without burning. With enemies on every border, and the land itself trembling, Mirasol must find a way to bind the Master to her land.
McKinley integrates the world building smoothly into a narrative that is a sensory delight, laden with tangible tastes and scents. Themes of stewardship, beekeeping, and the power of duty and love flow through the story like the honey described so temptingly.
There are a few too many convoluted sentences, but the power of the story eases the sting. McKinley fans will recognize in Mirasol a typically strong heroine who discovers her impressive powers as she finds her way.
My brief thoughts: The book is far too short - I would have enjoyed a story that lingered more, but nonetheless this book does have a certain familiar feel to it in the sense that it evokes the warm descriptiveness of McKinley's earlier writings. As someone who is a bit terrified of bees, all of the detailed descriptions of being swarmed by bees was a bit disconcerting, but I do love honey so the honey descriptions were nice.
I've now read 3 novels by Jodi Picoult.
19 Minutes
Blurb: Bestseller Picoult (My Sister's Keeper) takes on another contemporary hot-button issue in her brilliantly told new thriller, about a high school shooting. Peter Houghton, an alienated teen who has been bullied for years by the popular crowd, brings weapons to his high school in Sterling, N.H., one day and opens fire, killing 10 people.
Flashbacks reveal how bullying caused Peter to retreat into a world of violent computer games. Alex Cormier, the judge assigned to Peter's case, tries to maintain her objectivity as she struggles to understand her daughter, Josie, one of the surviving witnesses of the shooting. The author's insights into her characters' deep-seated emotions brings this ripped-from-the-headlines read chillingly alive.
My brief thoughts: The first of the Picoult books I read, I did find it a little weak. There were times when I felt that the writing was just plain bad and I was tempted to stop reading. Nonetheless, the storyline was compelling and I did find myself wanting to know what was going to happen next and why Peter did the things he did. Singapore Girl II recommended this book to me and her comment to me was good:
At the end of the novel, the shooter's mother said, "Everyone would remember Peter for nineteen minutes of his life, but what about the other nine million?" It's quite sad (not sure if you want to read a sad book) and it seemlessly moves from the perspectives of different people. The world is not as black and white as we would like it to be. While reading it, I could feel the anguish suffered by Peter's mother when she realised that she raised a monster and yet, she couldnt simply stop loving him because you just can't stop loving your children even when the world sees them as a monster.
I did find it very thought-provoking, much as I DID think about the shooter's family during the Virginia Tech shootings and wonder at the hell they must be suffering.
The Plain Truth
Blurb: Though it begins as the quietly electrifying story of an unmarried Amish teenager who gives birth to a baby she is accused of then smothering, Picoult's latest (after Keeping Faith) settles into an ordinary trial epic, albeit one centered intriguingly on an Amish dairy farm near Lancaster, Pa.
Katie Fisher, 18, denies not only having committed the murder but even having borne the baby, whose body is found in the Fishers' calving pen, and she sticks to her story, even when she is quizzed by Ellie Hathaway, the high-powered Philadelphia attorney who undertakes Katie's defense as a favor to Leda, an aunt she and the young woman share.
Ellie, who has retreated to Leda's farm in Paradise to reconsider her life--she successfully defends guilty clients--embarks on the case reluctantly: at 39, she wants nothing more than to have a child. However, to meet bail stipulations, she volunteers as Katie's guardian (since Kate's strict parents reject her) and moves in with the Fishers.
Living with the Amish necessitates some adjustments for both parties, but Katie and Ellie become fast friends in spite of their differences. Very little action occurs beyond the initial setup, though the questions remain: Who was the father of Katie's child? And did she smother the newborn?
Told from both third-person omniscient and first-person (Ellie's) vantages, the story rolls leisurely through the trial preparations, the results of which are repeated, tediously, in the courtroom.
Perhaps the story's quietude is appropriate, given its magnificently painted backdrop and distinctive characters, but one can't help wishing that the spark igniting the book's opening pages had built into a full-fledged blaze.
My brief thoughts: I thought that this was rather better written than 19 Minutes. I thought that the characters of Ellie and Katie were very well-written. Ellie was so very obsessed with having children and Katie was so cold and disassociated. I also found the descriptions of Amish life extremely fascinating although a great deal of what was in this book, was extremely reminiscent of a Cold Case episode called Running Around which was about the case of a a missing Amish girl who was murdered while she was in Philadelphia experiencing the Amish rite of passage called "rumspringa". Although the primary storylines are different, the storylines in both the book and the Cold Case episode have rumspringa, have an older male character who has been 'shunned', have an illicit pregnancy, have the mother play a pivotal role and also have descriptions of Amish life.
Mercy
Blurb: The setting is Wheelock, Mass., a slightly eccentric town where most of the residents are of Scottish descent, where weddings end in a blood vow, the name MacDonald is "painted on an alarming number of mailboxes" and police chief Cameron MacDonald doubles as clan chief and protector.
On a seemingly ordinary day in Wheelock, Jamie MacDonald, a cousin of Cameron's, drives to the police station and announces: "My wife here, Maggie, is dead, and I'm the one who killed her." Cam finds himself saddled with a murder case and a conflict of interest: his cousin has given in to the pleas of his cancer-ravaged wife to kill her, and he's come to the clan chief to confess. But as police chief, Cam must also prosecute.
On the same day, Cam's wife, Allie, the local florist, hires Mia, a violet-eyed beauty with a genius for flower arranging. Allie gets involved in Jamie's case, and Cam, who has spent his life in service to his community and his clan, falls in love with Mia and begins an affair that will bring his marriage to the breaking point and change it profoundly.
Like Jamie, Allie is the marriage partner who loves more. "It's never fifty-fifty," says Jamie. As Jamie's court case proceeds, Picoult plumbs the emotional core of both marriages. The pace of the trial is slow, but Picoult pays loving attention to her central characters, fashioning a sensitive exploration of the balance of love.
My brief thoughts: This novel was a bit painful. First of all, there was a very detailed description of cancer ravaging one of the characters which was extremely sad. Secondly, the book was about euthanasia/mercy killings. Thirdly, there was a contrast between an extremely loving couple and the relationship of Cameron MacDonald who is cheating on his wife Allie who absolutely adores him.
I hate infidelity and Picoult describes the infidelity and Cameron's elated feelings of love with incredibly meticulous detail making me absolutely hate Cameron and wishing that he'd go and die in a fire :P Lastly, Picoult poses the headache question of the nature of love. Jamie's wife towards the end of her life wants Jamie to kill her. In what he believes is an act of ultimate love - he smothers her with a pillow. Later on, he starts to question whether this was the right thing to do? Was it right for Maggie to have asked Jamie to do this knowing how much he adored her and how much he would suffer for it afterwards?
Does love mean blind obedience to the wishes of another? I couldn't help thinking that Maggie was selfish for her demands - for instance, she could have arranged to kill herself but she said she wanted to have Jamie's hands on her at her moment of death - even though she knew full well how he would be affected after her death. I know that it's awful to watch someone you love in pain, but presumably if Maggie had been unselfish, she would have asked Jamie to assist her rather than make him actually kill her.
I didn't really have any answers, but it was certainly a very thought-provoking book.
Graceling by Kristin Cashore
Blurb: If you had the power to kill with your bare hands, what would you do with it?
Graceling takes readers inside the world of Katsa, a warrior-girl in her late teens with one blue eye and one green eye. This gives her haunting beauty, but also marks her as a Graceling. Gracelings are beings with special talents-swimming, storytelling, dancing.
Katsa's Grace is considered more useful: her ability to fight (and kill, if she wanted to) is unequaled in the seven kingdoms. Forced to act as a henchman for a manipulative king, Katsa channels her guilt by forming a secret council of like-minded citizens who carry out secret missions to promote justice over cruelty and abuses of power.
Combining elements of fantasy and romance, Cashore skillfully portrays the confusion, discovery, and angst that smart, strong-willed girls experience as they creep toward adulthood. Katsa wrestles with questions of freedom, truth, and knowing when to rely on a friend for help. This is no small task for an angry girl who had eschewed friendships (with the exception of one cousin that she trusts) for her more ready skills of self-reliance, hunting, and fighting.
Katsa also comes to know the real power of her Grace and the nature of Graces in general: they are not always what they appear to be.
My brief thoughts: I haven't finished this book yet but am enjoying it a lot. Cashore writes in a manner that is very similar to early Robin McKinley and also Garth Nix (whom I adore). It's definitely one of those books about "girls who do things!"
When I started describing it to the Canadian he asked me: "Is it young adult fiction?"
Me: Yes, how did you know?
The Canadian: Because it's all about a young girl with super powers who can beat up all sorts of people including adults :)
I don't want to rush through this book because Cashore's next book in the series isn't out until September but it's very good so far so I suspect I'll be finishing it soon.