Review: Graceling by Kristin Cashore

THE FACTS: 

            Title: Graceling

            Author:  Kristin Cashore

            Publication Date:  2008

            Pages:  471

Round of applause: 2009 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature, SIBA Book Award for YA Literature, a Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults

SUMMARY:

            Katsa, the niece of King Randa, lives in her uncle’s castle in the central kingdom of Middlun.  Her presence at courts has little to do with her nobility and almost everything to do with her grace—a special skill/power the possession of which is indicated by having two different eyes.  When Katsa’s grace for fighting/killing emerged at a young age, her uncle quickly saw to her training and began utilizing her as a weapon.  Burdened by the weight of her royal missions, Katsa started a Council—an underground vigilante-esque organization that operated in all seven kingdoms.  The novel opens with Katsa carrying out a Council mission to retrieve the elderly father of the Leniad king.  In the process, she encounters a Leniad prince also apparently graced with fighting.  When she returns to court, this prince, is there being entertained as a guest.  Eventually the two become friends and embark on a journey peppered with suspense, conflict, love and sacrifice. 

E’S 2 CENTS:

            My summary doesn’t really do this book justice.  I generally hate books with maps in the front, but this novel managed to establish another world without requiring me to reference a map or glossary of invented terms every other sentence.  Graceling definitely fits into the category of “approachable” fantasy.  My distaste for the fantasy genre on a whole is mild and generally a result of my frustration as a reader having to learn a new language and history.  In our culture at large however, I sense a stigma around the genre of fantasy.  As if the only people who read fantasy spend their afternoons dueling in parks, not having girlfriends, and generally avoiding all traces of reality and coolness.  While, recently, geek has been moving toward chic, I still wish fantasy books could be published without bearing the impenetrable seal of social ineptitude.  With its glossy cover embossed with a reflective sword, I was a little embarrassed to carry Graceling around with me… but I loved reading it.  The story is well written, the characters compelling, and the elements of fantasy detailed enough to be fulfilling yet not enough to be confusing.  Although set distinctly in the realm of fantasy, this novel explores ideas and feelings that are innately human.  In many ways, fantasy allows all readers to relate personally/emotionally to the characters because no reader can relate superficially.  We’ve discussed in class how the characters’ circumstance seems to take the forefront in YA novels, and the “relatability issue” that stems from this emphasis.  Fantasy doesn’t have to deal with this problem of relatability because it develops new worlds outside any reader’s context.  While the details of these worlds do draw a lot of focus, novels like Graceling explore other issues.  Discovering our talents and deciding how to use them, gender roles, the possessive nature of relationships, even the danger of persuasive speakers… this book is fully stocked with interesting ideas to rummage around in.  Even if you don’t do it in public, Graceling is definitely worth a read.

--E