Graceling - Kristin Cashore

471 pages

Genre: Fantasy / Young Adult
Awards: Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature 2009

Rating: 5/5

Katsa has been able to kill a man with her bare hands since she was eight; she's a Graceling, one of the rare people in her land born with an extreme skill. As niece of the king, she should be able to live a life of privilege, but Graced as she is with killing, she is forced to work as the king's thug. She never expects to fall in love with beautiful Prince Po. She never expects to learn the truth behind her Grace--or the terrible secret that lies hidden far away. . .a secret that could destroy all seven kingdoms with words alone. With elegant, evocative prose and a cast of unforgettable characters, debut author Kristin Cashore creates a mesmerizing world, a death-defying adventure, and a heart-racing romance that will consume you, hold you captive, and leave you wanting more.

Wow. Just wow.
This book was such a joy to read.

Gracelings are children gifted with special abilities and distinguished by their different coloured eyes. . Graceling is about Katsa, a girl ‘graced’ with the ability to kill. Extremely well. She’s her uncle, the king’s, enforcer – not something she enjoys at all. He makes her feel like a thug and a brute, and Katsa sometimes imagines herself to be the savage everyone thinks she is. But Katsa also sees the injustice of the kings and takes it upon herself to use her abilities to help where she can. On one such mission she meets Po. Prince Po. Prince of one of the other seven kingdoms, and also a Graceling who is a good fighter.

Both Gracelings understand how the other feels, with the uncomfortable stares and fear they arouse in people, and form a bond. Po and Katsa become sparring partners and then fast friends. When Po asks her why she doesn’t refuse being under her uncles’ control, Katsa begins thinking and making changes, which lead her to some hard decisions. ( "When a monster stopped behaving like a monster, did it stop being a monster? Did it become something else?") Their trail leads them to Po aunt’s kingdom and what follows is a secret that has the power to ruin all the 7 kingdoms.

This is a lovely story of fragile friendship with its own ups and downs and the strength of character that shines through from these two. You cannot help but love Po. (Despite his name) Katsa is someone who finds it hard to let people in, but cares for those she’s close to. It is heartbreaking when Katsa and Po finally discover their feelings for each other and share them. She has this weird thing about never getting married, which didn’t make sense seeing as she loved Po and agreed to be his lover but not his wife. Katsa has control issues.

There were no frivolous descriptions or filler in this book. Everything written worked towards giving the reader a sense of the characters frame of mind or what was happening around them. Cashore can make you picture a situation and the surroundings with a few short words, and get you completely involved in whats happening. There's whole cast of characters that you connect with. I loved Raffin, Oll, Bitterblue and even Giddon.

This book didn't have the typical ending with everything just falling in place, there was more left to do and still problems to overcome, and i was glad for that. Read this book. There's a reason this won a award people. There's 2 more books coming soon:

Fire, Graceling's prequel, is out in Ocotber 2009 and Bitterblue has no release date yet. Find out more here