Graceling - Kristin Cashore

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Hi my Pretties!!!!! Today I shall start on the wonderful Graceling series, better known as the bravely fighting Seed 13 in the YA Heroines Tourney last Christmas (or would it be the just past Christmas, 3 months ago?). Graceling, in a nutshell, is a complex book, in my opinion.

Goodreads says: 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. 

When she first meets Prince Po, 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.





In contrast to some (not at all, mind you, I adore YA books more than anything) other Young Adult books that have no plot, or a forced plot, or a boring one. Graceling was a wonderful idea, the whole thing being some people had these special abilities, called Graces, that could be wonderful or extremely dangerous. The main character was one badass chick but Katsa had this mindset where it was her against the world (this is what my reading told me, you are always entitled to your own opinion!) Now on Goodreads, some have taken to attacking Katsa and how the book was a giant feminist message and this is where I had to backpedal a bit.

I thought, Are we reading the same book here? I mean, I saw some feminist messages here, but mostly, all I read was this broken (or more like closed off) main heroine who's being used as a weapon by her uncle and she thought she couldn't control herself. Oh, and Po was quite possibly a doormat in contrast to Katsa's kicking ass persona. But mostly, what I enjoyed was the political intrigue in the story. Like why does one of the characters kidnap another's grandfather?  How deadly can a Grace be if it can be controlled? Graceling is very ass-kicking and the execution, despite boring in the middle, was graceful (hehe I'm such a bad punner). Recommend it lots!