Graceling

Graceling

By Kristin Cashore

In a world where people born with an extreme skill - called a Grace - are feared and exploited, Katsa carries the burden of the skill even she despises: the Grace of killing. She lives under the command of her uncle Randa, King of the Middluns, and is expected to execute his dirty work, punishing and torturing anyone who displeases him.

When she first meets Prince Po, who is 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.

So I have been meaning to read this book for a long time. It's been recommended to me several times and I've actually gotten it from the library three times. I just never have managed to get around to reading it before this fourth time.

I felt like this definitely had a first book in a series type feel. What I mean is that there a lot of aspects of this world that are unexplored. I hope that as the series goes on, some of the ideas or questions I thought of will be addressed.

I felt like the romance was a little weak, but it wasn't really the focus of the story. Katsa says from the beginning that she never wants to marry and she never wants children, and, because of her Grace there is really no one who could ever force her too. I didn't really agree with some of her reasoning, but I had to respect that she stood by what she said, even when (THIS IS NOT REALLY A SPOILER) she realizes that she has come to really care for Po. Sadly, I could not get over my mental picture of a sexy panda bear every time his name came up.
In this world, which as far as I can tell is called The Seven Kingdoms (why is it always the seven kingdoms?), the Graced are very easily spotted, they all have heterochromia. Gracelings have two different colored eyes. Sometimes their eye color doesn't settle into different colors until weeks, months, or even years after birth.

Once the Graced are identified they belong to the king and are sent to his court to be raised. If the child's Grace is useful, they remain there in the king's service. In the event that the child has a useless Grace, it is sent home with apologies, because it will be difficult for the family. There is a great deal of fear and superstition attached to Gracelings and they tend to be avoided.

Honestly, I don't know how this country keeps going without simply collapsing. Almost all of the Kings, which are really more like Warlords, are horrible rulers. They are corrupt and are constantly squabbling. I may need to read through it a few more times to get how it works, but most of the rulers of each kingdom are distantly related to each other.

Overall, I thought this was a very interesting concept and world. I thought that the storyline was weak in some spots and I predicted who the villain was, almost as soon as he was mentioned for the first time. It's attempt to be surprising backfired a little. I hope that the later books will improve though.

This definitely young adult, which shouldn't mean that I don't expect as much from it, but sadly does. I think I may just be a little to old to enjoy it as much as if I were, oh, about 14-15.

I'm trying to think of any other books I've read that really use heterochromia, but all I can think of are mangas, which have an overabundance of strange hair and eye colors. Maybe some of my readers *hint,hint* will be able to think of some titles.

Cursing Cats

Apologies for the late blog post. I assumed incorrectly that I would have time to keep up with this because we weren't having many people over. Man, some people are a pain, you know who you are. Just kidding, Thanksgiving was lots of fun and I am now very sleep deprived.

The Curse Workers:

White Cat

By Holly Black

Cassel comes from a family of Curse Workers - people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they're all criminals. Many become mobsters and con artists. But not Cassel. He hasn't got magic, so he's an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail - he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.

Cassel has carefully built up a facade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his facade starts to crumble when he finds himself sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He's noticing other disturbing things too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him. As Cassel begins to suspect he's part of a huge con game, he must unravel his past and his memories. To find out the truth, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen

I have to admit that I predicted several things that happened later in the book, but that didn't keep it from being an interesting read and there were a couple of key points that took me by surprise.

At first glance the world of White Cat doesn't seem very different from ours, but as the book went on there were all these little details that gave it a different twist. It's our world if there just happened to be magic.

One detail that I really liked was that everyone wears gloves. Because Curse Workers can do so much with their bare hands and there's no way to tell who is one just by looking, it's considered as essential to being dressed appropriately as wearing pants.

The idea of Curse Workers reminded me in some ways of the Contractors in the anime Darker Than Black. They have these incredibly powerful abilities, but they pay for it every time they work a curse in ways that they can't control. This provides a very reasonable way to keep Curse Workers in check as the more powerful the Curse the more painful the payment.

I doubt I will read the second book in the series because I had a hard time liking one of the main characters and was completely neutral about the other. I think the two things I liked the most was the mystery about what had really happened in the past (I was only half-right) and the world itself. The world fascinated me more than the characters which is not very conducive to reading more in the series.

One of the things I didn't like about this book was that all the characters in this book had a rather skewed moral compass. There were spots were I had difficulty seeing how the actions of the protagonist were any more morally correct than the villians. It was more like they were all just rivals in the mob.

Overall, I liked the book enough to finish reading it, but that's about all. I've found that I tend to only like about a third of Holly Black's books, but they always sound interesting and make me want to try them.

Dragons Be Here

First off, I want to say sorry for the long absence. I got caught up in a lot of homework and then it was just really hard to get started again. But I'm back now and hopefully I'll be able to keep this up for a while yet.

Seraphina

By Rachel Hartman



'Four decades of peace have done little to ease the mistrust between humans and dragons in the kingdom of Goredd. Folding themselves into human shape, dragons attend court as ambassadors, and lend their rational, mathematical minds to universities as scholars and teachers. As the treaty's anniversary draws near, however, tensions are high.'

Seraphina is one of the best dragon books I've read in a long time and I felt like I really couldn't sum it up anymore concisely then the summary on the back of the book.

 It begins with both a birth and a funeral. Prince Rufus has been found murdered in a suspiciously draconian method and this does not bode well for continued peace.

Seraphina is a very gifted musician who is the assistant to the court composer and whose father is intimately involved with making sure the treaty is kept. She gains much attention for the haunting solo she plays at this funeral and soon she is teaching Princess Glisselda harpsichord.

Of course soon she has learned things she'd rather not and Seraphina's deepest secret is threatening to be revealed.

One of the things I love most about this book is the dragons themselves. While they may look human it is very plain to anyone who meets them that they are not. They move awkwardly and stiffly, their blood is silver, and they don't understand emotions well at all. The newer the dragon the more obvious their wrongness.

Political intrigue and mystery are also elements that I really enjoy in this book. There are players on both sides that don't want the treaty to work. On the human side, we have The Sons of St. Ogdo, who believe that Dragons are all monsters that should be wiped out and not allowed to integrate their evil into society. While on the dragon side, we have old Dragon Generals who feel that they gain very little with this peace and lose much, most notably their hoards.

It is very unclear throughout the book, until the end that is, just who it is that benefits from the death of Prince Rufus.

Someone did complain that some of the names in this book were too similar and that made it confusing, but I didn't find it to be that much of a distraction.

There is some romance, but I thought that it felt more like a subplot rather then a major component of the plotline.

Overall I found this to be a very sophisticated young adult book. It's 467 pages so it's longer then some of the books I've reviewed but I don't think it's a laborious length at all.