Book Review: Graceling by Kristin Cashore

Graceling by Kristin Cashore
#1 in the Seven Realms series
Release Date: October 1, 2008
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Pages: 471
Received: Own
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Summary

From Goodreads:

Katsa has been able to kill a man with her bare hands since she was eight—she’s a Graceling, one of the rare people in her land born with an extreme skill. As niece of the king, she should be able to live a life of privilege, but Graced as she is with killing, she is forced to work as the king’s thug.

When she first meets Prince Po, Graced with combat skills, Katsa has no hint of how her life is about to change. She never expects to become Po’s friend. She never expects to learn a new truth about her own Grace—or about a terrible secret that lies hidden far away... a secret that could destroy all seven kingdoms with words alone.

Review

Katsa, oh Katsa. Where do I begin?

If this were the kind of book where I was expected to get behind Katsa and view her as a paragon of awesomeness, I'd probably upchuck. So, it's pretty lucky that I didn't view Katsa as a character I should agree with 100% of the time.

Here's the deal with Katsa: She grew up in her jerkface uncle's custody and spent most of her life there completely ignored by him. Occasionally he'd send her off on a mission when he needed her to go torture or kill some upstart in his kingdom. Pretty messed up, right? Of course it is, and now, also obviously, so is Katsa. You just don't go and have an upbringing like that and expect to come out A-okay.

So Katsa's about 12 kinds of weird mixed with a heavy dose of "she just ain't right," but that's ok and expected. Her background and development also make her an interesting and sometimes even sympathetic character. But you know what it also makes her?

Annoying.

*sigh* Sometimes I felt like I had stumbled into the medieval fantasy version of an issues book. I wanted to see more amazing fighting and hear less whining indecision. But fine, if we're going to explore her wounded psyche, then someone seriously needs to teach Katsa how to express her feelings in healthy, constructive ways.

Look, I get why people in her court probably never wanted to say "no" to her (probably because of the whole "she can kill you with her pinky" thing), but the girl needs to learn some manners. I wanted to tell her to shove it every time she barked out some impulsive and inane command.

If Katsa ever found the Internet, she would totally be one of those people who expects you to be able to Google anything. Find me the name of the book I was thinking about two weeks ago! WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU NEED MORE INFORMATION?! DOOOO IIIITTTT NOOOOOWWWW!!!

She would also write everything IN CAPS LOCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111

But, just like encounters with those people, I never really took her to heart. I mean, the girl's messed up. But, like, seriously, she's not right in the head. I pretty much just rolled my eyes at her and gave her the literary equivalent to that whole shoulder pat "Ok honey, whatever you say, uh huh..." response.

Also, I would love it if Katsa could stop being such a grade-A jerk when it came to the treatment of her horses. Seriously, lay off. 

What about the rest of it?

The rest of it is much better. I'm a fantasy fanatic, so I'm admittedly biased, but I liked Kristin Cashore's fictional world a whole lot. The idea of being graced is a lot like having X-Men super powers, which is always a Give Me That Book! feature for me.

I liked unraveling the mystery about Katsa and Po's graces (they're not what you're first led to believe), but the reality of them was mixed for me (a let down for Katsa's, but I thought Po's was pretty cool). I also liked the mystery surrounding the kidnapping, but the coolest parts centered around the villain and their past.

My only real complaint about all of this is that the pacing is more moderate than fast, and I'm the kind of reader who thinks "frenetic" is "just right." So I was a little antsy at certain points. Still, for a book that's almost 500 pages, it didn't feel that long at all.

When all was said and done, though, I have to admit that I felt a little disappointed. Kinda like, that's it? For me, Graceling was a good, solid book, but I was hoping for greatness.

There were a lot of "almosts" for me here—the world building was almost there, but there was a roughness that led to some holes. The supporting characters were almost perfect, but they didn't have enough development or pagetime. The mystery was almost fantastic, but I felt let down with the swiftness of the resolution and the villain's motivation. So, almost, but not quite.

Less Katsa, more everyone else, please!

Aside from Katsa, the other characters were all pretty likable, but none are particularly well developed. Part of that is because this is Katsa's story though, and most characters only appear sporadically. I do like them all enough that I want to learn more about them and I'm hoping at least some will appear in the other books in the series (Fire, a prequel, so probably pretty slim odds and Bitterblue a sequel in which I know at least one character will reappear!)

The only other character of note that I can talk about without giving away spoilers would be Prince Po, and I sort of have to say his name with a swoony sigh. He's the kind of guy who leans. He's all casual cool and he can totally hold his own. He's also not afraid to call Katsa on her less attractive qualities, thankfully.

Not only that, but he's one of those rare guys who I think would satisfy readers who like alpha men AND readers who like, um, there has to be a better description than sissy boys—sensitive guys? Peeta-like? (sorry, you can tell which side *I'm* on). I'd put Po in a category with guys like Wayland North (TOTAL swoon) from Brightly Woven and Howl from Howl's Moving Castle.

The writing makes me cringe a little

The writing is...serviceable. I mean, you can read it just fine and it doesn't get bogged down with flowery adjectives everywhere. But it's rough. There are a lot of weird repetitions ("Turning when it was time to turn...") that seemed like really lazy writing/editing. Not a deal breaker for me, but it did make my eye twitch a little.

Bottom line

I mostly avoided a lot of hype and, thankfully, one of my early introductions to Graceling was through Krystle's far from glowing review. Had I been sucked in by the hype I think I would have been massively disappointed, but luckily my expectations were pretty low already so I was pleasantly surprised.

I liked it enough that I am going to read the two other books in the series, but I don't feel the need to beg, borrow, bribe, and steal for them. Graceling ends as if it were a standalone, so while I will read the other books at some point, I can comfortably push them a little further down my TBR for now.


Oh, and a warning for those who want a warning: There's sex. Not graphic, but it's there, and it's of the "no strings attached" variety.

Explanation of rating system: Star Rating Key 

Do you have any questions about Graceling that I haven't addressed?
Feel free to ask in the comments!


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