Review of Graceling

	Graceling by Kristin Cashore 480pp (Paperback) My Rating: 8/10 Amazon Rating: 4.5/5 LibraryThing Rating: 4.29/5 Goodreads Rating: 4.17/5

The YA fantasy Graceling is Kristin Cashore's debut novel. Her second novel Fire, a loosely connected prequel set 35 years prior to Graceling, came out last year. Cashore does recommend reading Graceling first to avoid spoiling part of it, and even though I read these two books in reverse order, I can understand why since it would have taken me a lot longer to guess what was coming if I had not read Fire first. Currently, Cashore is working on a sequel to Graceling called Bitterblue, which takes place about six years after the end of it.

Sixteen-year-old Katsa's two different colored eyes mark her as one of the Graced, people with a specific super-human ability. Some people may be Graced with storytelling, mind reading, or dancing, but each person's ability is at least somewhat unique. When Katsa was eight years old, she hit a man who seemed a little too interested in her - with enough strength to kill him. Ever since then, her uncle the king has found his Graced killer useful for keeping his subjects in line and calls on her to threaten those who aren't behaving as he'd like.

Katsa hates her uncle and the jobs he makes her do, and she formed the Council in order to do some good. Together she and her friends in the Council set out to rescue an old man, the father of the Lienid king, who has been kidnapped by one of the other kings for an unknown reason. While there, she meets a Graced fighter but lets him live in spite of her better judgment. Soon the two become friends and work on discovering the motives behind the disappearance of the old Lienid.

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After reading Fire and loving it enough to include it in my favorite books read in 2009, I of course had to read Graceling. I was a little worried I'd end up disappointed with it, mainly because I had heard Fire was an improvement over the first book. Fire is in my opinion the stronger of the two books - it's more polished and better paced, plus I loved Fire more than Katsa as a protagonist. Yet Graceling was still very good with several of the elements that made me enjoy Fire so much - it was very readable and hard to put down once it got going, it had a great female lead with some complex problems, it contained some other wonderful characters, and it was not a perfectly happy story where everything works out 100% perfectly for everyone.

It's probably no surprise that the highlight of this book for me was the characters. Katsa is very hot-tempered and often angry, particularly since she despises her role as her uncle's torturer but feels like she has no choice but to obey the king. It is fun to see her grow throughout this novel, and the people in her life who help her along the way are such endearing characters - her cousin Raffin and Po. There is a bit of a love story and I think Cashore writes romances very well. Katsa is not a brooding, angsty woman who thinks of nothing but getting married and having children (quite the opposite since she is quite vocal about her desire to do neither). Falling in love is not in her plans, but it happens in spite of herself and even when it does it never makes her lose sight of her goals.

The way the story unfolded was also very well done. Part of it I knew about due to reading Fire first, but I really enjoyed the extra complexity that was revealed about the Graces. Katsa and Po's Graces were not as straightforward or simple as initially portrayed and learning more about them and what it meant for both characters was enjoyable, if somewhat too convenient at times.

Graceling is another lovely book by Kristin Cashore with a strong, complex female lead. Between this novel and Fire, it's guaranteed I will pick up anything written by this talented new author.

8/10

Where I got my reading copy: I bought it.

Other Reviews:

• Angieville
• The Book Smugglers
• Fantasy Book Critic
• Graeme's Fantasy Book Review
• OF Blog of the Fallen
• The Wertzone

Review(s) of related books:

• Fire

The Leaning Pile of Books

This week I have five new books I added to the TBR pile. They're all books I bought myself this time and they're all ones I really can't wait to read, although I probably won't get to more than one of them this month (I'm still trying to figure out my November reading list other than By the Mountain Bound by Elizabeth Bear, which I'm reading now).

Lips Touch: Three Times by Laini Taylor

I received review copies of the two books in her Dreamdark series and ended up really enjoying both of them (Blackbringer and Silksinger). So when I heard about this newest book by Laini Taylor, I was intrigued. Then I heard it was nominated for the National Book Award, and I also heard it was very dark, moving it up to must-order-right-now status. After flipping through it some, seeing the gorgeous pictures, and reading parts of it (especially the intro to the second story, "Spicy Little Curses Such as These"), I'm pretty sure this is a book I will be making sure to read in November.

Graceling by Kristin Cashore

Like the Laini Taylor book, this is one I bought because I received a review copy of another book by the author and ended up loving it. In this case, that was an ARC of Fire, which is one of my very favorite books I've read this year. Graceling was Cashore's debut novel and Fire is a prequel to it, so this was another must-have. I'd like to read this one this month as well, although I'm not sure if I'll have time to.

The Living Blood by Tananarive Due

This is the sequel to My Soul to Keep, which I recently read and really enjoyed. It was nearly impossible to put down and I really liked how dark it was, the characters, and the amazing ending. This one was another must-have for those reasons.

The Praxis by Walter Jon Williams

This is the first book in the Dread Empire's Fall trilogy. I'm always looking for new space opera (unfortunately, a genre I've not read that much of this year even though it's one of my favorites) and after hearing some pretty good things about this one, I decided to get it. This is another potential candidate for SciFi Month when I do one.

Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn
This one is not science fiction or fantasy but a mystery. It's the first of the Lady Julia Grey mysteries and ever since Angie of Angieville recommended it to me (her review), I've really wanted to read it. After she mentioned it, I looked it up on Amazon to see what it was about and was very curious about reading more after seeing the opening lines:

To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband's dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor.

Review of Fire

	Fire by Kristin Cashore 480pp (Hardcover) Read Fire Excerpt My Rating: 9/10 Amazon Rating: 4.5/5 LibraryThing Rating: 4.51/5 Goodreads Rating: 4.33/5

Fire is a YA fantasy novel by Kristin Cashore. It is a loosely connected prequel to her debut novel Graceling and takes place approximately 35 years prior to it in a different land. Without having read Graceling, Fire was perfectly accessible and I did not feel at all lost reading it. However, Cashore's site does say that reading Fire first gives away a spoiler for Graceling so she thinks it is preferable to read them in the order of publication. Currently, Cashore is writing Bitterblue, a sequel to Graceling with a different main protagonist which takes place about 6 years after the first book ended.

Seventeen-year-old Fire, named for the color of her hair, is not shocked when she is hit by an arrow - until she learns that the man who hit her mistook her for a deer and is sorry to discover he shot a girl instead. As a rare human monster, Fire already carries several scars from attempts on her life made over the years. Monsters are extraordinarily beautiful and possess the ability to control minds. Many hate Fire because of her dead father, who abused his abilities severely and made a mess of the kingdom as an adviser to the former king. Others would like to kill her simply because they cannot possess her. Yet this hunter merely saw her brown clothing and thought he was getting some dinner. In spite of that, it is a bit suspicious that he's not the first stranger to be seen on this land lately and he is imprisoned once he returns Fire to her friend, the overprotective Lord Archer.

The next morning, the man who accidentally shot Fire is found dead, killed by an arrow wound that had to have been made by a very skilled archer. Soon after that, another stranger is found dead, and Archer decides to ask the former queen, Roen, for some soldiers and any information she may have on why this is happening. Fire insists on accompanying him and does so even though Archer insists she would be better off locked in her room where no one can harm her. On this trip, Fire meets King Nash, who is fascinated by her, and his brother Brigan, who looks on her with a wary eye and guards his mind against her. This leads to her involvement with trying to discover a plot against the kingdom when King Nash eventually asks for her aid due to her unique gift - which she very rarely uses after the example of her father before her.

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While I was reading the completely haunting and creepy prologue, I was hooked. It was quite a switch going from the prologue, which did not contain Fire, to the first chapter. At the beginning, I found it a little slow-paced at times but it wasn't that long before I was hooked again - and I ended up absolutely loving Fire. I loved the world with its brightly colored monster animals, the story itself, the way the story unfolded and all the different plots tied together (some were predictable but there were a few I didn't see coming), and the various characters.

Part of its appeal was its themes and the struggles that Fire and her friends faced. Fire and Prince Brigan both seem to both feel the need to compensate for the sins of their fathers before them. In particular, Fire never wants to abuse her power the way her father did, and when she has the opportunity to offer valuable assistance to her kingdom through her gift, she has to decide what her beliefs are about using her ability to control minds - whether or not there are any circumstances under which she thinks it is acceptable to use her power and how far she can go with it. For her whole life, her father taught her that it was their right to manipulate the minds of others however they pleased and she always shied away from using it for fear of being cruel as he was.

As a character, Fire does seem to be a bit too flawless. She's one of a kind as the last human monster, she's gorgeous, she can control minds, she's a talented musician, men beg her to marry them, she's brave and she's also very gentle and kind. Even when she is shot by the hunter in the beginning, she tells Archer not to be too hard on the man who could have killed her and has a pillow and blanket sent to his cell. Yet I really liked Fire anyway even though I often felt she was too good to be true. In spite of her advantages, Fire doesn't always have it easy - there are those who would kill or rape her, she's never known her mother and her father is dead, and the animal monsters like the scent of her blood far more than normal humans (which leads to the embarrassment of everyone knowing just when it's that time of the month since she needs extra guards then). Further into the book, it becomes very clear that she isn't invincible and Cashore is very hard on her. Plus it turns out Fire has a horrible secret and she may not be quite as obviously good as she seems.

As for the other characters, I loved pretty much all of them that were supposed to be likable (most of the ones that showed up fairly regularly other than the super creepy kid from the prologue). Brigan was easily my favorite character other than Fire, even though he was also on the very good side. Archer got on my nerves sometimes since he was so possessive of Fire - he was constantly asking her to marry him even though she always said no, keeping any guards away from her if she so much as said they were nice, and throwing lots of fits. He had been her friend since childhood, but sometimes I still had to wonder why she put up with him even if this was a fairly recent change in his attitude. That's not to say she let him control her since she most certainly did not and sometimes distanced herself from him because of it - but she still always saw him as someone she really cared for.

Even though the main protagonist was on the perfect side, she had enough hardships that did not magically disappear and obstacles in dealing with her uniqueness that she was still sympathetic. Fire was a pleasure to read and I found myself very invested in the what happened to the characters and finding out how the story unfolded.

9/10

Where I got my reading copy: I received an ARC from the publisher.

Other Reviews:

• Angieville
• The Book Smugglers