Customer Reviews

Graceling (Retail Edition)

5 star:		(279)
4 star:		(141)
3 star:		(57)
2 star:		(24)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

This book was a real treat to read. It was interesting on so many different levels. There is a powerful heroine who undergoes a transformation, discovering a strength of character to match her physical strength. Watching Katsa mature through the narrative was wonderful. The political intrigue was surprisingly compelling, and the mystery that drives the plot (why was this old man kidnapped, and by whom?) really worked. The romance was captivating. Even though it is obvious where the romance is going from the very first encounter, it was skillfully written. The magical elements of the story are not overwhelming, but alter reality just enough to make for a fun, fantastical world. I found myself sneaking off to read more of this book, and I was sorry to see it end.

BUT. This is billed as a book for 14 yo and up, so I think it fair to warn parents of elements they may not want their young teen to encounter. There are a couple of fairly discreet sex scenes, where the author is clear about what is going on but not very detailed. There is also a mention of a brothel near the beginning of the book (although a more offensive word is used to describe it) and there are many incidences of unwanted attention paid to girls or inappropriate comments made about them. This is a plot element, since it makes the lead female character defensive of the young women.

Also, and this is probably the "biggie" for conservative parents, Katsa rejects the concept of marriage, and there are several times when one or another character implies that it is a yoke that will force a couple to stay together regardless of their actual feelings. Being lovers is somewhat extolled as demonstrating their real trust and commitment to one another, since they are together without being forced, and love each other enough to set each other free if the love fades.

This book may actually allow parents to discuss these themes with teens, who need to decide where they stand on sex and marriage. However, some parents may decide just to skip this one if they don't want to deal with the issues.

Honestly, though, it really is a wonderful book, and I would definitely recommend it to any adult (particularly women) and most older teens, especially if they have someone willing to discuss any issues that come up for them as they read.

Graceling is an engrossing read with wonderfully interesting characters and I enjoyed it on many levels. I won't summarize the plot again for this Amazon review, but the author offers some interesting thoughts on talents and personal agency that are insightful while telling a good story that can be taken at surface level for a light read if that's all you seek.

The book has a satisfying romance that is neither mushy nor too remote. It rang more true overall than most relationships that have been in my recent reading. It's not primarily a romance, although the romance is a strong secondary plot that provides some of the motivation for the characters.

About halfway through, I began to wonder about it being YA since the characters do not come across as teens. I had to go back to the copyright page and check the recommended reading age to verify that, yes, it is being promoted as YA for ages 14 and up. Really, it is a toss up either way. Not that YA isn't mature and wonderful--I read a lot of it after all--but it could have just as easily been marketed to adults. I think the majority of readable fantasy is in YA these days.

I highly recommend the novel but I have to do so with a warning. If it matters to you, the book has a rather anti-marriage message in it which fits the main character's personality, but will be the most problematic element for some readers.

Graceling is well-written with some grand adventure, musings on talents, as well as characters who actually grow and change as they learn more about themselves. It never goes for the cheap shot in action sequences although they aren't the focus of the story. In other words, I liked it. Even the few philosophies that I didn't agree with made me think. That makes it a book worth reading.

Upon receiving my copy of Graceling, I had absolutely no expectations based on the summary. By the end of the third chapter, my expectations rose dramatically.

Graceling is about Katsa, the niece of a king, who has an extraordinary strength in combat skills. This extraordinary skill is called "Grace". Others may also have a "Grace" although the abilities vary from person to person. Some "Grace" skills are more useful than others, but all Gracelings are marked by their mismatched eyes.

Because of her unique and useful skill, she has become a henchwoman to her uncle Randa who is one of the seven kings of the world. It isn't something that she enjoys but it is something that she has come to accept.

While on a mission for The Council to retrieve the Prince Tealiff, she encounters another Graceling whose presence makes an impression on her.

Later, she encounters him again and learns that he is Tealiff's grandson and a Prince in his own right. The meeting with Po will prompt her to make a decision that will change the course of her life and her world as she and Po learn more of their Grace powers and of treachery and madness that lay within the corridors of another kingdom that will threaten the already fragile political stability of the seven kingdoms.

It sounds like a typical fantasy novel and to a large degree it is, but Graceling is so confidently and smoothly written that it felt fresh and new. The action and pacing of the plot moved at a brisk clip that I never felt bored. Ms Cashore also made good use of dialogue in that it was appropriate to the station of the characters. She also made a good decision in resisting the urge to make her characters speak in a modern rhythm. Instead, the dialogue had a classic style that gave it a timeless feel.

Which brings me to the characters! Katsa is a wonderful heroine to me. I do warn that she might not be everyone's type of heroine, especially those who are expecting a traditional sassy heroine. Katsa is a skilled fighter who is conflicted about how her skills are used. She is understandably wary of people due to the nature of her Grace and when she says that she is not interested in marriage, she really means it. She has a good heart but she can also be aloof, even dour at times. She is an odd mix of a personality that is unique for a fictional heroine. Typical for an anti-hero perhaps or a side character, but not the lead female. Because of that, I enjoyed Katsa and forgave her for some of her flaws that in another type of heroine, I might not have been so forgiving.

Katsa has friends in her cousin Raffin, her attendant Helda, and others who form The Council, a group of people throughout the seven kingdoms who work to help keep stability in the lands. These secondary characters are vividly drawn so it is easy to keep track of them and understand their importance to the story and to Katsa. However, it is in Po, the Prince who is trying to deal with his own ambiguous feelings about his Grace and searching for friends of his own, that she meets someone who can fully understand her.

And what a wonderful pair they are. It has been a long time since I've encountered two characters who were so uniquely right for each other.

This is a novel that I found unexpectedly mesmerizing. Before I sound too gushy, I admit that it isn't a perfect story. The end is drawn out a fraction too long and at times, the prose was a little too pretty. Yet those are minor quibbles because the truth is that once I started the novel, I had trouble putting it down. I even found myself sneaking peeks at work whenever I could. I would say to myself, "Just one more chapter!" And after I finished that chapter, I would say, "Maybe just one more!"

Simply put, Graceling was an excellent and enjoyable read that I will recommend to my friends without hesitation.

Minor caveat: This novel is a Young Adult novel and I recommend this book to readers age 14 and up with few reservations. However, there are descriptions of violence and a few scenes of sexual intimacy that, while neither graphic nor gratuitous, parents of children age 13 and under may want to consider prior to allowing their children to read.

Graceling is the story of a young woman named Katsa born with the "grace" of survival. It gives her superhuman strength which is a both a blessing, because she can defend herself; and a curse because her grace is exploited by her unscrupulous uncle who is ruler of their kingdom. As soon as her grace is discovered, she is trained as a killer and is sent on errands for the king against those who would oppose him.

Guilt ridden by the pain that she has caused, Katsa decides to form a benevolent council to right the wrongs she has done on behalf of her uncle. It is at one of these secret missions that she meets Prince Po, a young man from a neighboring kingdom who is graced with insight and foretelling. Prince Po understands Katsa and she feels she has met her match in hand-to-hand combat. Katsa is drawn to Prince Po's warmth and sense of humor and the two become fast friends. In spite of Katsa's promises never to fall in love she finds herself doing just that.

The rest of the story takes Katsa and Po on an adventure to gather information about Po's grandfather's kidnapping and the story's twists and turns keep the action going and easily readable. There were problems with the writing, however, that made the prose seem choppy and poorly executed. Sentences were often repeated and I found myself thinking, "Okay you've said that already. Let's move along." I was able to overlook most of that, but not the heroine's choices.

Katsa is a young woman in her late teens and, as such, she has some set ideas about marriage and motherhood---she will do neither. It is never clear why she feels this way, but I predicted that she would change her mind by the end of the book. I was hoping that Katsa would grow from her experiences and new found love. But from the beginning of the book until the end, she held fast to her decision never to marry. I could see how deeply in love she had fallen with Po and he with her. She suffered greatly over his well-being when he was in peril and he gave her a ring which, unbeknownst to her, made Katsa owner of everything he held dear. His very identity was tied up in that ring and he gave it to her. You don't find that kind of love every day and yet Katsa looked squarely into Po's mother's eyes and told her that she would never marry. That makes no sense to me. Instead Katsa justifies her decision as not wanting to take Po's choice to one day love another. What the heck?

Part of falling in love with someone means including them in your plans. It can sometimes mean that that which once was important to you no longer is as enticing if the one you love is not there to share it with you. Perhaps because the author is a young woman herself and has imparted some of her own notions of marriage and family to her heroine do we see Katsa reflect those ideas. Perhaps the author needs to grow herself so that her characters will as well. Because of this I am afraid the story left me somewhat unsatisfied.

Graceling was a highly readable story with some flaws that made it less than perfect.

This book is based on an intriguing concept. The first part of the book contained the best writing. I was completely in the character's mind for the first 20 minutes. After that, I kept on reading, but honestly was surprised by the cheesiness and convenience of the romance, as well as the amazing amount of forced coincidences -- so many that my relatively elastic suspense of disbelief snapped.

Halfway through the book, I decided to look up the author's bio. Sure enough, when you read the author's outlook on herself as "fiercely independent" you realize that the female protagonist is simply a hollow mouth-piece for the author's disillusioned perspective on feminism, sexuality, independence, love and relationships.

I'm a 25 year old girl, so this book should have been right up my alley. It wasn't. However, the best thing to take away from this book is its ability to open up discussions. Since it's targeted at young people, there are plenty of opportunities for them to explore the themes propelled in this book and decide if they think the conclusions and consequences are realistic (NOT, IMHO), as well as if the reasons behind the main characters' decisions were legitimate (I'd call them short-sighted and selfish).

Not every book has to be perfect or morally sound, but it should have some level of reality. This one did not in my opinion. Everything was too easy for the characters and the sacrifices made were pretty boring. The romance just happened in a bland and blatant way, not too mention CHEESY. What should have been the climax of the story was pretty anti-climactic. What could have been a fascinating concept was put on the back-burner to the author's agenda. Too bad. I'd been looking forward to reading this book for months since I'd read the reviews.

I liked this book- I agree hard to put down once you start. I will not go over the plot, since this has been done by other reviewers. BY the way, I am a Mom who pre-read it before giving it to my child to read.
Pros:
1.Strong message of girl power. Katsa is brave but not fearless, which I liked. I also enjoyed the format in which we see the story exclusively from her angle and hear her thoughts and emotions.
2. Nice beta male hero. Po (hate that name) is cute, supportive and not intimated by a woman/girl who can beat the pulp out of him.
3.Good cast of supporting characters.
4.The romance was well done. Much more realistic than most straight romance novels.
Cons:
1. I agree with the comments regarding Katsa's anti-marriage stance which seemed odd to me beacuse there was no background data to support her stance on this.
2. Katsa has her first sexual encounter with Po. This is described in vague terms but she makes a clear decision to take him as a lover not husband. I am OK with this but some may more conservative Mom's may disagree. Not really a con.
3.During her first sexual encounter, there is a description that she experienced pain with penetration. Again, some Mom's might feel uncomfortable about their younger daughters reading this. Po and Katsa have sex a couple of times. However it is clear their love for each other is deep.Again not really a con.
4.Ending is so vague. They seperate and go their own ways, clearly indicating a sequel in the works. I would have preferred it as a stand alone, with sequels set in the same world. Perhaps Skye's story or Raffin's or Bitterblues'.

I would recommend this book highly to young adults/older teens and of course adults. My personal opinion is that the above issues would make it less appropriate for Middle Schoolers. Again, this is my humble opinion. Others will probably feel differently.

I just finished this book so this review is like my first impression. I actually read it based on a very positive review from someone who usually has more common sense, so I almost expected a mind-blowing novel. Instead, as I went through the whole thing, I found myself more and more disappointed and hoped it would improve before the end, but it didn't (spoilers ahead).

I didn't give it only one star for the simple reason that the author put some effort into the accuracy of descriptions such as crossing a mountain (I've seen characters crossing frozen mountains without any sort of equipment and coming out as fresh as if they had taken a stroll in the park), and also because this book is still better than some very popular romance novels. At least Katsa has some other goals in life than dedicating it to a man, and Po tries not to be too possessive or controlling.

Still we are being served another version of Mary Sue and Gary Stu. Katsa seemed to be an interesting character at first, but then she succeeds in almost everything she does: she created the Council all by herself, is described as invincible since she can survive everywhere, she teaches people to fight, etc... That's quite a lot for only one person. Why not leave a bit more credit to the others?
As for her views on certain things such as marriage, I would have expected her to at least reconsider her position by the end of the book.
The main character's love interest has everything, the good looks, a good heritage, a Grace that allows him to have a good ending no matter what and a more than remarkable dedication to Katsa, which also makes him almost perfect. The rest of the characters are just cardboard characters, with of course the "good peasants" and the "evil kings". Let's not talk about the main villain, with the eternal evil-king-hurts- children-and-puppies cliché.

The world building is less than elaborate: I haven't seen any sign of religion, culture is kept to its minimum, everyone speaks the same language and politics are really simple. More than once I felt the characters were just modern people transposed into "another" world, if I may say so, because this world seems to enjoy everything from modern technologies (incredibly clean streets, white and gleaming marble even though they obviously heat the rooms with wood fire, the characters sometimes taking two hot baths in a row!!). This is nothing like "medieval" times.

Then, we are told that people fear the Gracelings but most of them seem to act normal around them.
The idea of the Graces was good and could really have been developed to make a great novel, not necessarily a romance. I would have been really interested to see the racism toward them, see how they would struggle to integrate, maybe see them regroup to rebel. But here there are very few consequences. After it is revealed their evil King was a Graceling, I would expect people to fear them even more, and even decide to eradicate them. That would be something to elaborate (maybe in a sequel?). I have to admit I was quite disappointed by the very happy ending and the absence of consistent plot, where everything is solved very quickly by only a handful of persons (why did no one else think of that before?). There is little showing, mostly telling, which I must admit makes the pace go faster but doesn't leave much to the reader's imagination.

I wished the author put more energy into world-building because, yes, a world where such people as Gracelings exist could be worthy of interest. Otherwise, the story could as well have been transposed to our world, if world building was too much trouble for the author.

I've been a dedicated fantasy and sci fi fan for at least 30 years now, and most fantasy books leave me rolling my eyes at the lack of original ideas. Graceling, however, took the concept of "gifted" or talented individuals to a new and unique level which I thoroughly enjoyed.

A person with a "Grace" develops a physical and/or mental gift that borders on the supernatural during late childhood and early puberty, and it often takes years for the full extent of the gift to become apparent. A person with a Grace (a "Graceling") is easily recognized by heterochromia (each eye on a Graceling is a different color); for example, Katsa, our protagonist, has one blue and one green eye. Prince Po's eyes are more striking - one silver and one gold. Some Graces are considered to be of limited value(e.g., the ability to swim like a fish or climb a tree like a squirrel), whereas other talents are exceptional in their "value," such as the ability to read minds or tell the future. Katsa and Po have powerful Graces. The value of a Grace - that is, the personal value, financial value, and value to friends, family and country - is an important theme with which the Graced characters struggle. It is fascinating to watch the Graced characters in this novel either mature with their Graces ... or self-destruct.

In some of the kingdoms, each Graceling is considered the King's "property" and must be sent to the King to be raised in his nurseries until the Grace makes itself known (fyi, the heterochromia takes place when children are very young, long before their Grace develops). In these kingdoms, the Gracelings are often feared, because the kings use them as assets - spys, fighters, etc. In other kingdoms, the Gracelings are free, and less feared.

At its core, this novel is about ethics, and how a person uses (or should use) his or her Grace. The temptation to use a personal Grace or the Grace of a family member for varying levels of personal gain presents an excellent discussion opportunity between readers, especially teens and their parents. In fact, I would encourage parents and teens to read the book together and discuss the characters, and how you (parent or teen) would react in similar circumstances.

Now for the downside of Graceling. It is very difficult to warm up to Katsa. For nearly a third of the book she is little more than a prickly and difficult teenager with the ability to seriously hurt or kill you if you make her mad, yet for some reason, many individuals apparently care deeply for her, and at least a couple of men find her irresistible. In fact, these same men will put up with a nearly ceaseless string of insults and nastiness from Katsa, all while apparently finding her the woman of their dreams. This may appeal to teenage girls, but it doesn't ring true to me and for the first third of the book I found it difficult to suspend my disbelief on that matter.

Also, like some other reviewers mentioned, I was a little put off by the anti-marriage attitude promoted by the book. In fact, Katsa's opinion on this issue doesn't make sense. Yes, she had problems trusting after so many years of being used by her uncle (King Randa) as his enforcer and thug. However, she overcomes her trust issues, and learns to completely trust the man with whom she falls in love - yet she is still set against even the possibility of marriage. I just don't understand how an 18 year old can be so certain she will never, ever want to marry or have children. Now please don't think I'm some ultra conservative on this issue - I clearly remember reading Anne McCaffrey's books as a teenager and being very irritated that the "happy ending" in all of her novels involved the marriage and pregnancy of the female protagonist. In Graceling, I think the emphasis on remaining unmarried would have been easier to accept if the author had focused more on the ages of the characters - in other words, "let's wait awhile and see where this takes us."

Regardless, this book is marvelous as a whole, and I recommend it. The Graceling world is well crafted and described, the dialogue is enjoyable and many of the characters are simply perfect - and by perfect, I mean you either love them or hate them, and whichever it is, you cannot wait to find out what happens to them. I hope Ms. Cashore introduces us to many new Graced characters and their adventures in future novels.

I love the premise of this story...at some point in their childhood or early adolescence, some people develop a 'Grace', some talent at which they are unsurpassed. Each 'Graced' person has odd-colored eyes to indicate their 'Graced' status. Some 'Graces' are useless (the example used in the books is the Grace for climbing trees) but others are very nice. Katsa's Grace is the ability to kill with her bare hands, a Grace that is very useful indeed to the King who directs her every move...or so he thinks.

I would like to have seen a bit more explanation of Katsa's motives for some of the things she does. For example, she insists she will never marry or have children, and indeed there are several good reasons why she might feel this way, but her specific reasons are never articulated.

Also, since Katsa's Grace includes an inability to feel normal levels of things like pain, hunger, or exhaustion, she demonstrates a real lack of empathy for the limits of the people and animals around her...and yet she has a strong sense of justice and refuses to obey those orders she feels are especially 'wrong'. I'd love to know more about how she learned these moral values.

I liked this book and these characters, and am looking forward to learning more of the fate of Katsa and Po.

I can't think of a person I know who would not enjoy the first half of this book. The author has an engaging writing style and pulls us in to immediately connect with our protagonist, Katsa. What lacks is any form of conclusion. Granted, it is to be part of a series, but that does not make up for the disappointment the second half delivers.
We live in the 21st century, which many people (particularly women) feel is to be some sort of liberating time. As a woman, I feel completely liberated. I am not however, completely ignorant between the difference of LOVE STORY and LUST STORY. To romanticize the idea of non-commitment to a "14 & up" audience is ridiculous. This is especially infuriating since it is quite evident the author is bent on convincing us that this is how strong women look at life, and how they should behave. The characters show inconsistency with their moral/ethical outlook. Inconsistencies in character make it very difficult to suspend-our-disbelief. I found myself quite removed from Katsa about half way through.
The writing style and talent of the author is to be commended. The message of this book, inconsistency of character and lack of conclusion prevents me from recommending it to anyone.