review; graceling

Graceling
by Kristin Cashore

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.

She never expects to fall in love with beautiful Prince Po.

She never expects to learn the truth behind her Grace – or the terrible secret that lies hidden far away… a secret that could destroy all seven kingdoms with words alone.

Review:

I’d heard so many rave reviews of this series when it came out. So many people recommended it, so many people praised it. Maybe I just read it too late, or I’ve outgrown the type of story this is.

It’s not that it’s a bad book. There are parts where I was sucked in, and there are turns of phrase that I applauded, and the characters were interesting enough, but the world seems a little bare and not fully fleshed out. Sometimes the prose seemed overly done, and sometimes, it just didn’t click for me.

As a whole though, the story is pleasing enough that I’m going to read the sequels. We own the whole series – we got them on sale, but between moving and then the baby, I never got down to reading them – and I’ve heard that books two and three are better than this one.

I hope we get to see these characters again in the sequels though, because I would like to know if they got closure for their family issues, and whether or not they ever got married.