Title: Graceling
Author: Kristin Cashore
# of Pages: 471 (hardback)
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Romance
Rating: ★★★★★
Synopsis: "His eyes, Katsa had never seen such eyes. One was silver, and the other, gold. They glowed in his sun-darkened face, uneven, and strange. She was surprised that they hadn't shone in the darkness of their first meeting. They didn't seem human....
Then he raised his eyebrows a hair, and his mouth shifted into the hint of a smirk. He nodded at her, just barely, and it released her from her spell.
Cocky, she thought. Cocky and arrogant, this one, and that was all there was to make of him. Whatever game he was playing, if he expected her to join him he would be disappointed."
In a world where people born with an extreme skill—called a Grace—are feared and exploited, Katsa carries the burden of the 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 execute his dirty work, punishing and torturing anyone who displeases him.
When she first meets Prince Po, who is 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: Wow.
Wow.
Wow.
That was so amazingly better than I expected it to be. Lately, I've been reading a bunch of books that I thought were pretty good, but, after reading this book, it would be like comparing a rock to a diamond. The diamond, of course, would be this book. Evertime I picked up this book, I found myself gasping in surprise because the author would throw in something that I was absolutely not expecting. And, besides the fact that the book is obviously fiction, the book's characters and their relationship with each other seemed VERY realistic.
One of my favorite....things about this book is that Katsa didn't end up marrying Prince Po in the end. Now, I'm sure that some of you are going to find this odd. I confess that I was practically screaming at this book (in my head, I don't want people to know that I'm crazy) because I really, really, really wanted them to get married. But they didn't. And, shortly after finishing the book, I realized that it was better that way. I felt that its not in Katsa's nature to marry someone; she said herself that she would not plan on it. And the fact that Cashore made her character stick to that is very admirable.
Whenever I write reviews, I always try my best to make it as negative as possible. Because, lets face it, it's easier to love something (in most cases) than to hate something. There are plenty of people who would be willing to give only praise to the book. And that's not going to help the author. But Cashire made it very hard for me to find something bad to say about the book. The one little complaint that I can think of off the top of my head is Prince Po's name. I know that Prince Po is named after some tree that turns silver and gold blah blah blah. But I hear Po and I think that he's some soft gentle guy. Or that he looks like a panda (I went to a zoo and there was a panda named Po). Po just doesn't seem manly enough though!
For anyone of you people who have not picked up this book and at least attempted to read it, DO IT NOW! Or I will personally come to your house and force you to read it (don't ask me how, I have my ways. [insert evil laugh])!
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Originally posted on Goodreads. Read the first blog post here!
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