Graceling (Graceling Realm, #1)

by Kristin Cashore

[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. 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.

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.