Book Review :: Graceling, by Kristin Cashore

Graceling by Kristin Cashore
Series: Graceling Realm #1
Also in this series: Fire
Published by Gollancz
on January 22nd 2009
Genres: Fantasy, Magic, Young Adult
Pages: 352
Goodreads

In a world where people born with an exceptional skill, known as a Grace, are both feared and exploited, Katsa carries the burden of a skill even she despises: the Grace of killing.

Feared by the court and shunned by those her own age, the darkness of her Grace casts a heavy shadow over Katsa’s life. Yet she remains defiant: when the King of Lienid’s father is kidnapped she investigates, and stumbles across a mystery. Who would want to kidnap the old man, and why? And who was the extraordinary Graced man whose fighting abilities rivalled her own?

The only thing Katsa is sure of is that she no longer wants to kill. The intrigue around this kidnapping offers her a way out – but little does she realise, when she takes it, that something insidious and dark lurks behind the mystery. Something spreading from the shadowy figure of a one-eyed king...

Last updated on 19 January 2022

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My thoughts on Graceling

Graceling, by Kristin Cashore, is based in a fantasy land, which is just called ‘the Seven Kingdoms’, and which has, surprise surprise, seven kingdoms in it, ruled by seven Kings; 6 kingdoms on the mainland, and 1 on an island. In this fantasy land, there are some select people who are ‘Graced’. This means that they possess a certain supernatural trait, such as mind-reading, seeing the future, reading the weather etc. You can tell who is Graced by their eyes. They are different colours.

Katsa is one of these people (she has a bright blue eye and a bright green one). She is Graced with killing. Everyone in the land knows of her and has heard stories of her deathly streak. She is sent on missions for her Uncle, the King of one of the kingdoms, to do things like torture someone who stole money or to threaten people who have done him wrong. But at the same time, she is the head of the Council – an underground movement, if you like, who do good, like save imprisoned people.

On one of her Council missions, she and her two side-kicks rescue an elderly man who had been kidnapped and who is actually the grandfather of one of the Princes in the island kingdom. This Prince (Po) – who is also Graced and has a gold eye and a silver eye – eventually meets Katsa, they become friends ..and then more than friends, and yay! Love! So the story follows Katsa and Po as they try to figure out who kidnapped Po’s grandfather, why they did it, more about how their Graces work and what on earth is going on in the southern kingdom.

My thoughts on Graceling by Kristin Cashore

Although the blurb about this book on Goodreads was the thing that got my attention, as soon as I got the book and opened it up and saw that it had a map, I knew I was going to like it. Authors who include maps of their invented countries are always in my good books…pun intended. I really liked the story too. It was well written, and read at a good pace, with enough action and suspense to be exciting, but not so much that you didn’t actually know what was going on around the fighting.

Something that I didn’t really like was that my favourite character (Katsa’s cousin) wasn’t in it as much as I would have liked, but I guess that’s because it wasn’t his story. But he was cool, and I would have liked to see more of him in the story.

Also, the climax of the book was very short and snappy, which was fine, but then there were about 4 chapters after that where it just sort of floated to a stop. Not the right word, I know. But you know, they were sort of fluffy end bits that were probably necessary but didn’t need to take up 4 chapters.

Have you read Graceling? What did you think?