Graceling by Kristin Cashore

This was an enormous book. From beginning to end there is so much in the plot that I feel as if I've read multiple stories in one. While I very much appreciate the skill of an author that can create such natural flow and extended story lines, it also makes for a very difficult review.

So I suppose I shall start at the beginning.

Katsa. She is an incredible heroine, and I very much appreciate the struggle she has with her Grace as well as the jobs she is given. However I will admit sometimes she's too volatile for me to like. There is a lot of character development with her from beginning to end as far as her interactions with other people, however, there are some aspects in which she doesn't change at all, and those are the ones that bothered me the most.

Po. Let's start with the name, shall we? It bothers me, I'm not going to lie. Initially Cashore tries to paint this strong boy who is a worthy opponent to Katsa. He's big and powerful and has startlingly intense eyes. But this image wavers throughout the book, and I wish she'd put more effort into his character. In different parts of the book it felt like I was reading about a different person. Sometimes he's strong and manly but also a good friend to Katsa, and the next he's weak and kind of pathetic. I think if Cashore had put as much effort into Po's character as she did Katsa's, I would have appreciated him a lot more in the story.

There's a lot of introduction and then disappearance of characters. Most the the characters you meet at the beginning of the book aren't in the majority of it, and then when they're brought up again later you've forgotten who they are!

The world building in this was fantastic. Katsa travels all over the place, and you get a very good sense of the world she's living in. Most of the people she encounters are given good depth and many of them are quite interesting. However, I feel like a lot of them should have played larger roles, and developed stronger ties to Katsa. This tags along with the character introduction and then disappearance that I mentioned before.

The romance in this was interesting, to say the least, and not always in a good way. Po really gets into Katsa's mind, but she's a huge baby about it. I don't think their relationship was dealt with in the right way, however once accepted it was very fun. But there's also something serious about it that I hate to bring up but I really have to. There's a lot of casual sex, and Katsa even says she's fine with Po loving other women, which I don't think is a good base for a YA romance. To my dismay, upon reading the reviews of the next book, Fire, it seems this is a theme with Cashore. While I don't have anything against people having sex before marriage, this is marketed to young children, even middle school age, and I don't think that's the morals that they should be reading.

All that aside, I really did enjoy the book. It had an exciting plot with lots of action, and never a dull moment. While I wish Katsa and the characters hadn't been separated for so long, it wasn't hard to stay interested.

The next book, Fire, has some extremely mixed reviews. I have a few things on my plate currently, but afterwards I do think I'll make an effort to read it. The ratings are either five stars or one star pretty much, so it would be nice to get my own take on it. From what I've read it seems significantly darker than this book, which I think could be good, because a lot of aspects of this world were left unexplored.

Three Stars

Yours Truly,

Rosalie

Graceling on Goodreads