Graceling
By Kristin Cashore
Read: Feb/Mar 2010
Rating: Worthy
Graceling was a gift, from someone who swore it was excellent. It should be, it has the endorsement of Tamora Pierce. It is a good book, with a good world, and enough momentum to keep one reading. I won’t say I adored it, but it was very enjoyable.
In the world of the seven kingdoms, there are people with magical talents, called Graces. All people with Graces have eyes of different colors They may be silly things, like being able to cook just one food, or they may be incredibly useful. Katsa, King Randa’s niece, learned early on that her Grace gave her a remarkable ability to kill. She found good mentors who encouraged her to learn to control her gift, and so Katsa has spent all her time since learning how to fight without killing. Her uncle is a petty man who sees her as a useful tool, and he sends Katsa to wreak vengeance on those who wrong him. His orders have become precise–he tells her how much pain he wants their victims to feel. Katsa is not happy being the king’s pet thug, but she feels trapped under his control.
Her resistance begins beyond the castle. She and her mentor and friends form a group they call The Council, which they use to right wrongs. They are careful in their selection, but word is slowly spreading and people are only too happy to help them. One of their missions is to rescue an old man held captive by a neighboring king. On her way out of the castle, she runs into a Graced young man with astounding eyes. For no reason she can fathom, he does not stop her, but trusts her not to kill him. No fool, she knocks him out and prays he doesn’t say anything later.
Their mission successful, they return to Randa’s palace and smuggle the old man inside. Lo and behold, the Graced man is there as well, and he’s a prince. He wants to know what happened to his grandfather.
This is how Katsa and Po become allies, and friends. His Grace also gives him amazing fighting abilities, and for the first time in their lives they are evenly matched. Po joins the Council, and group makes plans to discover who kidnapped the old man and why. This mystery leads them across half the known world, over land and water and frozen mountain peaks.
The journey is transformative for Katsa. She has immense physical power–she’s strong, her sight and hearing are excellent, she has a very high threshold for pain, rarely tires, and doesn’t the cold. But for all that, her uncle has a tight grip on her. She could kill him and all his soldiers easily, but holds back for the sake of her cousin, who she loves and who have to punish her for murder when he assumed the throne. Worse, Randa has emotional power over Katsa, always making her feel small, stupid, a brute. Her first breakthrough was acting against him surreptitiously. Then she challenges him directly, and throws off his chains.
Katsa is used to being the strongest person in every situation. She’s still a better fighter than Po, and she likes that he’s a solid challenge for her. She doesn’t like the sudden discovery that his Grace is more than she thought it was–he is able to read her in a supernatural way, which she sees as stealing her thoughts. It’s a long, slow battle to rebuild their friendship.
Ironically, it is Po’s Grace that is the only defense against their villain. Katsa is as powerless as everyone else. She hates the lack of control.
No, the prince doesn’t save the day. It’s all Katsa, acting, in the end, on her love for Po and her need to protect him.
Their love is another struggle for freedom. Katsa knew a long time ago that she never wanted to marry, as any freedom she had would be that granted by her husband–legally, if nothing else. She is afraid to lose herself to another person–to lose more control. In a very, VERY mature fashion, they ask all these questions over and over and Katsa gets her head straight before they both give in to becoming lovers. Still, she insists she will never marry… but now she worries what her leaving would do to Po. It’s a very honest relationship… necessarily.
In the end, Katsa had found her strength again, and she has a plan for her life–or the next year or so anyway. Which is really all a sixteen year old should have. She’s going to teach girls to defend themselves. A very fitting job for her.
Ok, enough spoilers. On to the whinge and the squee.
SQUEE: Bitterblue, Po’s little cousin, is adorable. She’s ten, and has been through hell. She’s very insightful, and intelligent.
WHINGE: I had a few, “You shitting me?” moments, though–her wording is… not what one expects of a ten year old.
SQUEE: Po’s eyes are one of Katsa’s turn on. You know, he looks at you with that intense stare, and you just go all hot inside… Yeah, I felt that. Pretty much every time it happened. That’s hot.
SQUEE: There was a lot of traveling, and I didn’t hate it!
WHINGE: The Tamora Pierce influence shows. Katsa is totally a more brutal version of Alanna–with less emotional intelligence and more bluntness. And Alanna could be pretty blunt. I would say that Katsa is less evolved than Alanna, but she’s learning.What’s more, some of her opinions could have come straight out of Alanna’s mouth. None of this was intentional, they’re just very similar.
WHINGE: As another reviewer points out, Katsa is very mature in some ways, and incredibly dim in others. This is acceptable up to a point. It’s excellent that Katsa-the-indestructible has some very prominent weak points, but it makes her other mental and emotional successes a bit circumspect. Read the link, they put it into words far better than I could.
Anyway, good book. Give to your teens who want something grittier than the typical YA stuff.
OH OH OH! Graceling gets the distinguished honor of having the crappiest Book Trailer have seen in a long time.
As one commenter said, if I’d seen this first, I probably wouldn’t have picked up the book.
