Graceling (Graceling Realm, #1)

by Kristin Cashore

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, punnishing 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 saftey? 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 ...

• ISBN10: 0575098147
• ISBN13: 9780575098145
• Publish Date: 1 July 2010 (first published 1 October 2008)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 3 December 2014
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Gollancz
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 400
• Language: English

Reviews

[layawaydragon]

The hype is real and it is good. Even as I struggle to get into books lately, I had no such trouble with Graceling. I blew through it in two days, where my recent average is much longer than that. I'm happy with the ending and glad to leave it there. Maybe if I'm ever in the mood again for YA Fantasy, I know which series to pick.

[alindstadtcorbeax]

Star Rating: —> 4.5 Stars

I very, VERY much enjoyed this— no actually, I LOVEDDDDD THIS!

Don't know why I waited so long to read it, but the new GORGEOUS paperback covers for the series, and the new book made me finally take the plunge!

I. Am. So. Glad. That. I. Did.
Seriously, it was a fantastic read.

Ayy on to Fire! Series with different protags for the different installments are hit or miss with me, so fingers crossed it is just as good!!!

[writehollydavis]

3.75/5. An overall enjoyable read, I liked all the different Graces and how Gracelings had different eye colors. I love how strong Katsa is and her growing relationship with Po and care for Bitter Blue. Reading this long after its publication, it felt like an older fantasy, one for its time, if that makes any sense. Like it seems like Katsa being a strong female MC who didn't want to marry and could kill people with her bare hands was new and fresh when the book came out, so it felt normal while reading it now, when that's become a prominent thing in the YA fantasy realm.

[Jo]

1.5 Stars.

Review to come.

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

I find the variety of reviews on this one *really* interesting. From people loving the world to hating the pacing to being unhappy it isn't feminist enough to hating the audiobooks - people have a lot of feelings about Graceling.

I have a lot of feelings about Graceling, too. They're overly positive.

High fantasy is my jam. I love reading it, I love writing it. If I had my own personal portal into any genre where I could step in and have my own novel-worthy adventures, it would unquestioningly be high fantasy. And Graceling does it all. So. Well.

Starting with the characters - they feel real. They're not too big, not too small, not too easily changed. They defy certain expectations of traditional fantasy character but still fit perfectly in their world. The romance is beautifully done and it's so different. Not just for YA, not just for fantasy, but for just about anything I've ever read. I think the discussion about feminism is really interesting (I wouldn't call this a feminist book by any means - I don't think that was Cashore's intent? Or if it was, it didn't come off well to me). I think the blurred line between YA and adult in this book is fantastic.

I love the depth of description. I could *feel* Katza and Bitterblue's cold. I could taste the terror as they ran. And my heart broke near the end, when Po reveals his secret. The consistency in the world is really great as well - guess what? They hunt, they eat, and it's not pretty but it's correct within the setting.

I feel utterly robbed that I can't go grab book two and pick up this story right where they left off. Because that's not how this trilogy works.

Like so many other readers, I am ravenous for more. I recommend this book wholeheartedly, doubly so if you enjoy high fantasy.

[nannah]

I wanted to reread this because since I first read it (year), I’ve seen so many glowing reviews and couldn’t quite remember why I disliked it? So a reread was definitely in order! Warning: this review is long and negative.

Content warnings
sexual harassment
pedophilia mention
animal abuse

In the seven kingdoms, having heterochromia means one is Graced . . . and being Graced either means working for the Kingdom or being treated as a lower class citizen. When Katsa’s eyes changed color, her Grace gave her better advantage in fights, and she became known as the “lady killer (unfortunately not as gay as it sounds)”.

Katsa can be described in two simple, stereotypical tropes: the “I’m not like other girls!” and “the TOUGH girl but not strong girl”. Now to address the first, it’s not even because she’s Graced. It’s more like internalized misogyny - in the character and in the author. It’s sad female authors write this so particularly well.

“A girl who didn’t want the husbands Randa pushed on her, perfectly handsome and thoughtful men, a girl who panicked at the thought of a baby at her breast, or clinging to her ankles.

“She wasn’t natural.” p.32-33

YIKES. ok this is TERRIBLE to tell young adults. First of all, we have lesbophobia, and then calling women who didn’t want children “unnatural”. Sure, it’s character-appropriate thinking, but you can’t say it’s Katsa’s PoV, because this book is written in omniscient tense . . . this wouldn’t make sense. It’s the omniscient narrator calling women like Katsa unnatural, which is . . . really offensive and harmful to young women.

There’s also this gem: “Katsa had no reason to interact with a woman servant.”
This is such a prime example of internalized misogyny and it’s never corrected in-book. :/ Just sticking “the queen was more than capable” or something in the text later . . . doesn’t quite do it. Especially if the PoV is omniscient . . .

God, Katsa even “refuses to have an opinion on the matter” of the color of tapestry in her room. I’m pretty sure you don’t have to be a man, woman, or otherwise to be able to like a color but what do I know? This is ridiculous, Katsa is ridiculous, and the fact I’m supposed to like her character is ridiculous. In the same vein, soft pillows and chairs are also out for her. Too girly. So if she has backaches, she probably still sits on concrete. Or maybe backaches are girly, too. (show spoiler)[Then again, her Grace apparently helps her to not feel pain like other people. But pain is also a signal of survival and damage, so if she doesn’t feel pain, it’s actually not a good survival tactic. ] (hide spoiler)

TOUGH girl but not strong
Katsa is the epitome of this awful trope, female characters who are obnoxiously physically strong . . . and that’s all there is to them. There’s no depth to their character. They typically hate anything feminine, hate other women, especially hate other feminine women, and look down on feminine traits. Because they’re TOUGH.

The moment I died?
When she began hating herself for feeling attraction to Po, for no other reason that “OMG but OTHER GIRLS feel attraction to boys! and I’M not like other girls!” I mean, if she hates liking boys so much, then why doesn’t she just start liking girls instead?

She also compared a sixteen-year-old girl getting harassed by a bunch of men “too much like a dumb, confused rabbit caught in a trap.” I swear, the internal sexism in this book is so difficult to bear. And to think it’s so highly recommended!

One more slash at Katsa, and then I’ll be done. The way she treats horses is absolutely abysmal. She runs them beyond ragged, with no care to their well-being, only that she gets to her destination as soon as possible, and that whoever can’t keep up with her is lazy. I’m ashamed this book is for young adults! Katsa actually lames a horse and doesn’t care! She says the horse can go on anyway, because she wants to go on. Of course, it’s said later the horse is actually lame. With no hard feelings towards Katsa. I just can’t believe it.

The writing isn’t much better than Katsa’s character, and I’m not surprised. There’s so many simple grammatical errors and awkward writing that I feel like Graveling is either horrendously edited or a rough draft that somehow got published. Somehow. Here are some marvels:

- Introducing a subject in a paragraph and switching it in the middle without introducing the new subject: “Katsa stared other plate. He was talking about brothers . . .” Katsa’s the subject here, and this is an entirely new scene! The HE here is finally introduced by name THREE pages later!

- Hundreds of incorrect commas used as pauses

- This ridiculous dialogue:
“Katsa, a man would be a fool to try to keep you in a cage.”
“But that doesn’t tell me how you’ll feel, always to be subject to my whim.”
“It isn’t your whim. It’s the need of your heart.”

- “I’m ever so slightly dizzy.”

- Strange sentence structures like “And that was enough of that, for it was Po she wanted to fill her eyes with” that fill the entire book.

- An incredible amount of summary over action/interesting areas, which just makes me feel cheated.

Now when it comes to Po and Katsa . . . things just aren’t that much better. They’re so plastic with each other. There’s no real emotion! It’s just we’re being told there’s emotion, so we’re supposed to feel it? Plus, Katsa is abusive. When Po’s grace improves, she gets SO angry, even though her Grace and talents are immense (she can start a fire with icicles, can hunt better than anyone, fight better than anyone, doesn’t feel pain/cold). Yet he improves on one aspect and bam! How dare he?! She’s literally abusive but it’s presented as a romantic relationship.

The character Bitterblue doesn’t feel real, either. She’s simply a plot device. No ten-year-old would be so calm in the face of her mother’s murder or all of the terror she’s facing! I don’t care if she’s “special”, it just doesn’t happen! It all just adds up to the book not feeling real. It’s just a series of bullet points playing out.

Now, to what I did enjoy: the bit in part three after Katsa and Bitterblue got through the mountain pass and reached the ship. It was entertaining, despite the awkward prose and dialogue. I’ll give it that, but I can’t say I enjoyed much more.

I’ll only read Fire because it’s part of a reading challenge I’m working on.

[neddieb]

This book is okay. I skimmed through most of it. I just could not get into it. It was an interesting concept regarding Gracelings, but I just could not embrace the characters or the story itself.

[tweetybugshouse]

This is a book i picked up several times at bookstores when i gone in the cover just screams great fantasy read. I was thrilled when i found a copy for 2.00 at my local goodwill. It sat on my shelf for a long time and then i picked it up this weekend. This book has a great premise to it and kept me reading at good steady pace up until about the middle where it did seem to drag quite a bit like the girl of fire and thorns when she traveling in the valley. I did like how it all got summed up in a pretty neat bow at the end so it was not a heart wrenching cliff hanger making me scream for book two. I am intrigured to see what the other graces are that are to be discovered in book two. I mostly rated it a 3 as i did not feel that i got a great sense of the world that the story takes place in, mostly felt like she just jumped around from place to place and then took a long trip with Po. So a mediorce read for me but they can't all be 5 stars.

[Sam@WLABB]

Loved it!

A Graceling is identified by their two colored eyes and a special talent or "grace" they possess. Katsa, our kick-ass heroine, possesses a grace that allows her to be an outstanding fighter. However, she is claimed by her uncle, the king, to do his dirty work. This troubles Katsa, so she puts together and leads a council to help protect the people of the seven kingdoms.

The mystery unfolds while on one of these council missions. Enter Po, a prince and a graceling, and the love story begins.

What is so great about this book? Katsa -- she is a strong, female lead, who strives to control her grace and her life in a time when women were expected to bear children, sew and throw parties. Katsa is a well crafted character, who is strong, but still has a sense of femininity. Although Katsa denies such womanly wants, you see her growing throughout the story -- becoming a little softer when it comes to Po and Bitterblue. Then, there is Po. His adoration for Katsa and his real desires are always obvious. I hope to see this play out to a greater extent in the next book.

The author delivers a solid story, with a solid plot and paints a beautiful picturesque background for us to enjoy.

[SilverThistle]

I liked this book, although I didn't realise it was Young Adult fiction when I bought it. It wasn't a huge problem but you can tell it's YA which results in it being a bit tame. If I was in any doubt that Graceling was a fantasy novel, I need look no further than the naming of locations. As usual the land is split up between rulers and the place-names have arrived at their monikers by virtue of compass direction. I forget exact names because they're not that memorable but if I said North town, West town, East town and South town then I wouldn't be far off the mark.

However, the idea of Graces more than makes up for the unimaginative geography. I love the idea of people with superpowers that are everyday talents boosted to infinity. A Grace can be anything from brilliant pastry chef to pitch perfect singer or someone might find themselves Graced with the ability to spot a lie at 50 paces. It's difficult to blend in though if you find yourself with a Grace, because you also find yourself with different coloured eyes....a dead giveaway.

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I thought the story itself moved along pretty fast but the romance element that ran through it wasn't really much of a romance and there wasn't enough spark to make what little there was believable.

I liked the ending and it got quite nailbiting towards the finale and the book is not without some really hateful characters who make you root for the heroine.....but I'm probably not going to read the rest of the series
.
It's worth reading though, just for the novel idea of the Graces.