Graceling by Kristin Cashore

Graceling by Kristin Cashore

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Generally, the broad criticisms of this book are accurate. It is fairly superficial, zipping along at times when a slightly slower pacing would be a good idea. The characters are interesting, but mostly I was left wanting to know more about all of them, and sometimes their motives were completely inscrutable.

What is interesting about this book that I didn't expect from a straight up YA genre work was the independence of the heroine. In this type of book, where the female protagonist is a tomboy, she is almost always tamed and persuaded to be feminine to catch the eye of the male love interest. No so, Katsa. If anything, she becomes more butch and independent after she loses her virginity to Po. In fact, instead of the inculcation of marriage and sex only inside marriage that you find in most YA fiction (Harry Potter, anyone?) Katsa doesn't want to get married: she just wants Po to be her lover and her friend.

All in all, I'd recommend this to young girls who like genre fiction and who aren't quite ready to graduate to the adult books yet. It was feminist and fun. In totally unrelated and irrelevant news, the cover is completely gorgeous.

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