Review: Graceling by Kristin Cashore

Series: The Seven Kingdoms trilogy, book #1

Published: October 1st 2008

Publisher: Harcourt Children’s Books

Details: Hardcover 417 pages

My grade: 4/5

My summary:

Great book which is a coming-off age story about a girl Katsa and her relationship with the prince Po set in a fantasy land called the Seven Kingdoms, somewhat similar to the set of Lord of the Rings. Great read about a strong heroine with paranormal abilities and a believable love story.

See my full review here:

Synopsis:

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

She lives under the command of her Uncle Randa, King of the Middluns, and is expected to carry out his dirty work, punishing and torturing anyone who displeases him. Breaking arms and cutting off fingers are her stock-in-trade. Finding life under his rule increasingly unbearable Katsa forms an underground Council, whose purpose is to combat the destructive behaviour of the seven kings – after all, the Middluns is only one of the Seven Kingdoms, each of them ruled by their own king and his personal agenda for power.

When the Council hears that the King of Liend’s father has been kidnapped Katsa investigates …and stumbles across a mystery. Who would want to kidnap him, and why? And who was the extraordinary Graced fighter who challenged her fighting skills, for the first time, as she and the Council rushed the old man to safety? Something dark and deadly is rising in the north and creeping across the continent, and behind it all lurks the shadowy figure of a one-eyed king …

My thoughts:

I hardly ever venture into fantasy land, The Lord of the Rings series being the one and only exception. And now that I come to think about it, it’s strange, because seeing as I devoured that series I wonder why it never occurred to me to seek out other books in that same genre?

Anyway, to cut it short, I am a novice when it comes to the fantasy genre, and so Graceling wouldn’t be my usual pick. But as I stumbled across reviews of this book on various book blogs, I was intrigued, both by the tough heroine with paranormal abilities and of course the romance. (I’m a sucker for the latter)

So, as for the review, I can start by saying that Graceling was a page-turner. I think I read the book in about 2 days. It’s filled with action-packed adventure and a beautiful romance, but at its core it is a coming-of age story about Katsa.

The story is set in a land of seven kingdoms where some children are born graced with an extreme skill. A skill that can be anything you might think of, from trivial things like walking backwards, holding your breath, climbing trees to more advantageous graces like exceptional sword fighting or mind reading. Katsa is burdened by the grace of killing, and is naturally feared by most people. Ever since her grace was known (by accidently killing an annoying cousin) the king has been using her to perform his ill-willed tasks. In order to balance out the acts of evil she performs under the influence of the king, she has started a secret council, bent on doing good. It’s during one of their missions that we are introduced into the book.

At the start of the book, Katsa carries around a lot of anger. She’s angry to be burdened by her grace which is making her a “freak”, lonely and feared by most people. She’s angry to be used by the king carrying out his dirty missions. More importantly, she is not entirely sure how to separate the evil acts she performs for the king with herself. She is doubting her own “goodness” so to speak. As the story moves on she gradually comes to terms with who she really is and how to accept her grace as a part of herself.

One character that helps her on her way to self-discovery is Po, a prince from one of the other kingdoms who sets off with Katsa to solve the mystery of the kidnapping (the council’s mission at the start of the book). Po is a wonderfully drawn character, and as he has that emotional maturity and security that Katsa lacks, he appears to be that perfect person to befriend the temperamental, angry and wild Katsa. I just loved watching the two of them getting to know each other!

Another great character is introduced halfway through the book when Katsa and Po cross paths with Bitterblue, a child princess from yet another kingdom. This is when it starts getting really interesting, not only because the story itself heats up, but also because Bitterblue is such a likable character, strong, brave and mature, who immediately forms a strong bond with Katsa.

In short, I loved the plot which contained everything you might wish for; adventure, romance, fighting scenes, creepy villans and a tough cool heroine.

My only minor criticism is that I found the language a bit uneven. There were parts in the book where I got distracted from the story because certain paragraphs were constructed in such odd ways. The language just didn’t have that effortless flow, at least no constantly throughout the book.

Either way, it’s still a good novel with one of the most interesting heroines I’ve encountered in a while, not too unlike Katniss in Hunger Games.

Graceling is the first book in a trilogy. The third book in the series is to be focusing on princess Bitterblue, once again involving Katsa and Po in the story.. and well, I know I’ll be running out to get my hands on that book as soon as it is released!

Review: Fire by Kristin Cashore

Series: The Seven Kingdoms Trilogy, book #2

Published: October 5th 2009

Publisher: Gollancz

Details: Hardcover 461 pages

My grade: 3/5

My summary:

A prequel to Graceling, also featuring a heroine with paranormal abilities set in the Seven Kingdoms. It is not as good though, as it focuses more on a looming civil war rather than the love story. Still a quick and enjoyable read.

See my full review here:

Synopsis:

Fire, Graceling’s prequel-ish companion book, takes place across the mountains to the east of the seven kingdoms, in a rocky, war-torn land called the Dells.

Beautiful creatures called monsters live in the Dells. Monsters have the shape of normal animals: mountain lions, dragonflies, horses, fish. But the hair or scales or feathers of monsters are gorgeously colored– fuchsia, turquoise, sparkly bronze, iridescent green– and their minds have the power to control the minds of humans.

Seventeen-year-old Fire is the last remaining human-shaped monster in the Dells. Gorgeously monstrous in body and mind but with a human appreciation of right and wrong, she is hated and mistrusted by just about everyone, and this book is her story.

Wondering what makes it a companion book/prequel? Fire takes place 30-some years before Graceling and has one cross-over character with Graceling, a small boy with strange two-colored eyes who comes from no-one-knows-where, and who has a peculiar ability that Graceling readers will find familiar and disturbing…

My thoughts:

This is the second book in The Seven Kingdoms Trilogy by Kristin Cashore. I devoured the first book Graceling, and for that reason was surprised that I didn’t feel as much for Fire.

This book is not continuing the story of Graceling. Instead it is a prequel, and set in another kingdom all together. As mentioned in the synopsis above, there is one character from Graceling that appears in this book, but apart from that, as the environment and the characters are completely new, it does feel like a stand-alone book.

So I’ll try to get at why exactly I wasn’t as fond of this book as I was of Graceling.

Firstly, I think it is because the main character Fire is gorgeous, I mean, she is literally so beautiful that it is a problem to her as everyone she meets gets swept away (one way or another) by her beauty. Cashore does do a good job of portraying how that can actually be a problem, and so I do see her issues with her beauty, and of course the danger she’s constantly under, by being a monster. But it is still hard to relate to someone so breathtaking beautiful. I personally like heroines who have flaws, and more human so to speak.

Another reason is because this book is more political than Graceling. While Graceling is focused on a coming-of age story of the heroine Katsa, this book is more focused on the underlying movements of a kingdom nearing towards war. It does portray Fire getting stronger and more secure of how to use her paranormal abilities, just as in Graceling, but somehow the other elements of a looming war overshadows that. It is interesting to have a looming war provided as a background to the story, but I would have liked that as a mere background, and the story itself to be more focused on character development.

There are quite a few supporting characters in the royal court where Fire spends most of her time in the book, but for some reason they seemed pretty one-dimensional to me, and I really didn’t care what was happening to them.

I did care about the romance though, which is slowly growing throughout the book, and I rooted for the guy. However, I was constantly wishing for them to have more time together. He was far too busy, always going somewhere else, and sometimes I had a hard time not just skipping through the pages to get to the next section of them together.

In saying all this, I still read this book quickly, so it was definitely a good fun read. It just didn’t quite live up to my expectations after having read Graceling, that’s all.