Author: Kristin Cashore
Genre: Fantasy,
General Thoughts: Great great book.
Rating: 4.5/5 stars.
First Lines
His eyes. Katsa had never seen such eyes. One was silver, and the other, gold. They glowed in his sun-darkened face, uneven, and strange. She was surprise that they hadn't shoe in the darkness of their first meeting. They didn't seem human..
Graceling is the story of Lady Katsa, a girl who is graced with the power of killing. She has been trained all her life, and used by her uncle, king Randa, to do all of his errands, torturing and killing people. And then she meets Po, who is graced with the power of fighting. Together, they'll search for the answer to Grandfather Telif's capture, and find a few mysteries of their own.
I've wanted to read this book for a while. More than a year and a half, I'd dare to say. But somewhere along the way I heard this tiny bitty bad review about it. I can't even remember who was it from or what exactly did it say, but I remember it discouraging me from reading it.
Enter present world, where I find myself with new friends and companionship (book related) and they happen to mention their love for this book. Reason why we're here. I read it. And I regret really hard not reading it before.
The writing is one of the things that did it for me. It was a special kind of writing due to it being more 1600's, to say a year. And I've heard a lot of people complain about it not being good, but I'm not a native English speaker, and for what I saw, I think that she wrote what was best.
Then we have Katsa. I don't necessarily love her as my favorite character. She's super bad ass and hilariously dense. But she's very robotic, and this makes me not feel her as much. And there's also the "I don't want kids, not getting married cause freedom" thing. In my case, I related her intensity towards that problem due to the era in which she finds herself. I mean, if someone was like that in this century, or the past one, or even the one before, I wouldn't have bought her. Because it would have been fake and very unnecessary to dig so much into it. But Katsa is kind of in an older time (or at least that's my perception) and I think it's not that exaggerate. Of course, it did bother me, for her to be so surly. But I get it.
I found the idea of Graces and their relation to the eye color to be such an original idea and very cool. Very well thought and executed. And all this Grandfather Tealif being captured and who is the one who ordered it. That's just plain awesome. One thing I didn't really like, which is very characteristic of series, is that not everything is revealed. And I wouldn't mind it that much if it wasn't because they really didn't say anything. There are so many things mentioned but not explained that it feels like the the author forgot about this things. But I guess I'll have to read the other two. on my way
But the thing that really bothered me about this book is how anticlimactic is was. It built up so much things and there was so much potential, and it all ended in this...nonsense. It really blew it for me. But the book in itseld was so amazing and interesting and full of awesomeness all over that I gave it 4.5.
AND OMG PO. Cutest thing ever. I'm in love completely. He's A+ perfect. And that ending was perfect. Really sad, but it was meant to be. The only thing I didn't like about it, is that you could see it coming miles away. But oh well.
You should definitely read this if you haven't. You won't loose your time and you'll end up so delighted.
