If I could get away with just writing 'read it' this week I would, but I suspect that you probably want to know a bit about the book.
A grace can be anything - swimming, singing, dancing, fighting. Being a Graceling doesn't just mean being good at something. It means being very very good. Amazing. Unbeatable. It's also tough being a Graceling. You aren't exactly hated, but you aren't hugely welcome either unless you're useful. Katsa is a Graceling and an orphan. She lives with her Uncle, the ruler of the Midluns. King Randa finds his orphan niece very useful. Why? Because Katsa has the Grace of Killing.
Like the other stories I've reviewed on this blog, the story revolves around a young woman learning that she isn't powerless. I don't want to tell you too much because I want you to read it for yourself but I will say that Cashore has created a great world. It's got high fantasy flavour without the tongue twisting names or an incomprehensible back-story. Cashore keeps things simple: not everyone has a Grace and even having one doesn't make you special unless it proves to be useful to someone with power. Like Katnis in Susanne Collin's Hunger Games Katsa is often bad tempered. She hates relying on others outside of her few trusted friends and, like Katniss, this behaviour begins to change right at the point it starts to grate on the reader. All of Cashore's characters are interesting- even the ones we see very little of. Somehow she manages to avoid the pitfalls of letting them do the predictable thing and gives you page after page of fantastic writing.
Graceling is a bit of a departure from some of the other hit YA novels out there tight now. There are no 'real world' reference points in this for you. Katsa's world and everything in it is built from scratch. That holds true for the plot as well. Graceling doesn't go entirely in the direction you expect it to - and that's a good thing. Like Un Lun Dun the story you do get is satisfying and worth passing onto a friend. There are love interests, there is betrayal, there is peril, there are fights and it all falls together in just the right way.
Even if you don’t like Fantasy, Graceling is worth a look.
Browninan Points:
Day 1-7 : No real change in my opinion of this over the week. A solid 8/10 the whole time.
1 comment:
Ooh, glad you liked this, me too. I have Fire, if you want to borrow it. It's set in a different part of the same world and has a couple of loose connections with Graceling. I enjoyed it, although not quite as much as Graceling. Looking forward to Bitterblue.
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