Graceling

Graceling

Author	Kristin Cashore
Language	English
Genre	Fantasy,Romance
Publisher	Harcourt
Publication date	October 1, 2008 (1st edition)
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardback and Paperback)
Pages	480 (first edition, hardback)
ISBN	ISBN 978-0152063962 (first edition, hardback)
OCLC	185123364
LC Class	PZ7.C26823 Gr 2008
Preceded by	Fire
Followed by	Bitterblue

Graceling is a young adult fantasy novel by Kristin Cashore. It is her debut novel. The story is about Katsa, a young warrior, and her journey of self-discovery. The book earned a place on the Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year for 2008 and received generally favorable reviews. It was followed by a companion book entitled Fire.

Plot

During chapter 1-5, Katsa the main character is introduced. It starts off with her and Giddon and Oll, her assistants through the book. They are in dungeon looking for a prisoner, but they have to take out some guards first. Katsa is the big fighter of the group. She goes on to tell a story of how she found out her Grace. A Grace is a special ability that the characters have in the book. She was 8 when she accidentally killed her step cousin, when he attempted to touch her in a nasty way. He was grown and Katsa just barely hit him and his nose bone went into his brain.

In chapter 6-11, Katsa is in King Randa’s court yard. She had just finished horse back riding and was going to take a bath, then get dinner. Her servant Helda was in Katsa’s room looking for something. She called to Katsa in the tub and asked what she wanted to wear. Katsa responded “ You know I don’t care.” Later Katsa starts training with Po to get her combat skill ready for the long journey ahead.

In chapter 12-17, King Randa comes in and sees Katsa and Po’s training for the first time. Later that night Katsa and Po are eating and talking to each other about Katsa’s mission when suddenly Katsa jumps up and punches Po in the jaw. She said she was sorry to him and went to his side to tell hem to go to Raffin so he can be fixed up. Katsa, Giddon, and Oll prepare to go on their mission to torture a neighboring lord but Katsa is starting to re-think about hurting an innocent lord. After the mission was over she was outraged that Po lied to her and she storms into Raffin’s healing center and yells at Po for a long time, after that she storms out with tears running down her face. She is then called to King Randa’s court where she makes a choice either to stay and die or to leave for disobeying King Randa. She chooses to leave . . . but with Po.

Through chapter 18- 23, Katsa and Po finally reach the inn and experience weird things. The first thing they do is go to this room where a couple of merchants are sitting enjoying their meal when a sixteen-year-old female servant comes in to serve them. The merchants harass the serving girl until both Po and Katsa stand up for her. Later in these chapters, Katsa gets a haircut from two other servants both female; one is 11 and the other is 18 years old. Later in these chapters the merchants, Katsa and Po met earlier came to discuss about King Leck, Po and Katsa’s target. The merchants give false information and Katsa sees a side of Po that she has never seen before, anger. After their conversation, Po and Katsa leave to find Leck in his castle in Monsea. They don’t know what is about what happens they will change them both and scar them for life.

In chapters 24-29 Katsa and Po find Princess Bitterblue and King Leck, who kills his own wife but has a Grace of manipulating people’s minds when he manipulated Katsa’s mind for only a quick second. Po explains to Katsa that Princess Bitterblue is his cousin and explains King Leck’s Grace, which is very dangerous to most people with weak minds. All 3 of them are moving towards Monsea and King Leck and his men are looking for them but mostly to take Bitterblue, kill Po and to manipulate Katsa and take her in as a soldier. Later in these chapters, they plan to assassinate King Leck but failed with Po getting hit hard with arrows, having a concussion, dying of hypothermia and losing blood fast. The three of them pack their things and move out before King Leck’s men find the 3 of them and kill all of them. In chapter 28 Katsa had to make a sad choice she could never make . . . leave Po behind, they find a cabin and he is left there alone to recover from his injuries. Soon after they find it Katsa and Princess Bitterblue head out to Monsea and Po’s castle.

In the last parts of the book, chapter 30 through 39, Katsa has to make big decisions, encounters dangerous things, and has happy moments that make her really emotional. Both Katsa and Bitterblue are traveling and they have to set up camp while Katsa is hunting. She is attacked by a mountain lion and Katsa wins but with bad wounds. Bitterblue was worried for Katsa so she tended to her wounds. Later that night Katsa and Bitterblue are going to get a boat to Po’s castle. The sailors who are Po’s guards bring them to the place to see that King Leck is already there waiting for Katsa to bring Bitterblue. King Leck and Katsa are talking, until Katsa loses her temper and throws a knife at King Leck when he is talking striking him in the mouth, killing him. Soon after that, Katsa goes back to where they left Po to find out that he is better and that he is also blind. Later in the book Katsa and Po go to Bitterblue's castle where they get a surprise visit from Katsa’s old friends. Katsa was so excited that she not only hugged them but cried for them as well, everyone sees Bitterblue crowned as the new queen of Monsea.

In the epilogue, Po still cannot see, although his Grace has developed so he can sense his surroundings. Po takes Katsa to the beach in the cave under the waterfall. At this point in the book, both Katsa and Po have fully matured and are stating to change in many ways. Katsa learns to control her Grace and has become more caring in the book. She also wants to start a “school” to teach young girls how to defend themselves in Bitterblue City. Po becomes more patient with things and learns how to become a better prince and to be a better fighter as well. Po returns to his home is Lienid, to tell his mother that he is blind. Both of them enjoy being with each other ever since they were reunited after King Leck’s death.

Characters

• Katsa: The MAIN protagonist and niece of King Randa of the Middluns, she has one green and one blue eye and is 18 years old. Her Grace is first thought to be killing, after she killed a distant cousin with one blow of her hand as a child, but it is later revealed to be survival, enabling her to endure and live on in even the harshest conditions (e.g. she never gets sick, has immense tolerance for pain, can command herself to sleep and wake at any time, incredible stamina, can create a fire in poor conditions, and she can hunt and kill any prey animal and even most predators to eat). Because of her phenomenal combat skills - another aspect of her Grace - Katsa was used by her uncle to carry out his dirty work. She becomes friends with Po, but is furious when she discovers the truth of his Grace. Gradually, the two come to an understanding and Katsa realizes that she is in love with Po. She is forced to leave Po behind in Monsea due to the injuries he sustains while fleeing from Leck with Bitterblue. The pair manage to survive the journey through the mountains and, using Po's signet ring, charter a ship to Lienid. After a subsequent encounter with Leck, whom Katsa kills by impaling him through the mouth with a dagger, they return to Monsea in search of Po. At the end of the story Katsa decides to travel to Monsea to continue to teach Bitterblue to fight but will return to Po in Lienid at autumn's end, and she wishes to teach all the other kingdoms about fighting skills.

• Po: The seventh son of King Ror of Lienid, his full name is Prince Greening Grandemalion. Po's nickname came from the Po Tree. In the Fall, the Po tree's leaves turn the color silver and gold, just like Po's eyes. He is initially believed to be Graced with hand fighting, but it is revealed that his true Grace is perception. He is able to sense the world around him and the thoughts of others, but only when they are directed at him. These senses come to him automatically and he has no control whatsoever with his ability. Po was forced to hide his Grace's true nature at an early age by his mother for fear that others would be tempted to use him for their own gain, however throughout the story it is implied that his Grace is still not fully developed and is steadily growing stronger and changing. He is in love with Katsa. Po's Grace enables him to resist Leck's persuasion, making him the only person who is fully immune to Leck's Grace. He becomes blind as a result of his fall in Monsea off a cliff. Upon embracing the full nature of his perception, it enables him to hide his blindness from everybody except Katsa. Eventually, Po's grace evolves into a form of clairvoyance that gives him an omniscient like sense of everything around him. His brothers closest in age are Skye and Silvern.

• King Leck: The main antagonist and the king of Monsea, he possesses the Grace of persuasion, which enables him to deceive others with his voice as a form of hypnotic suggestion so that they would believe anything he says (it is revealed in Fire that he had one gray eye and one red eye). Leck first encounters Po and Katsa while hunting down his wife Ashen, whom he kills with an arrow, and pursues them and his daughter Bitterblue all the way to Lienid. It is only when Leck is about to reveal Po's secret that Katsa is able to break free of his control, killing him by throwing a knife into his open mouth.

• Bitterblue: The ten-year-old daughter of Leck and Ashen, she is the only character besides her mother and Po who is able to resist the power of Leck's grace; her resistance stems from when she witnessed Leck striking her mother. Both mother and daughter flee the castle to hide in the forest, but Ashen is killed and Bitterblue is found by Po and Katsa. Bitterblue and Katsa become close during the perilous journey through the Monsean mountains and befriends Captain Faun's crew on the sea journey to Lienid. After her father's death she assumes the throne of Monsea.

• Prince Raffin: The son of King Randa, he is Katsa's cousin and closest friend. He is shown to possess an avid interest in medicinal experiments and remedies from an early age and spends most of his time in his workroom with his assistant Bann.

• King Randa: Katsa's uncle and the king of the Middluns. While not an entirely unjust king he excessively punishes those who defy him. For this purpose he uses Katsa as his strong arm until Katsa defies him by refusing to torture a borderlord who refused to give his daughter in a marriage arrangement.

• Oll: Randa's captain and spymaster, Oll is one of the founding members of the Council, along with Katsa and Prince Raffin. He helped train Katsa to control her Grace. Not much else is known about him except that he has a wife, Bertol, and that Katsa describes him as one of the few people that she would grieve for if he were to die

• Giddon: A young Middluns underlord and member of the Council. He is in love with Katsa, who rebuffs his advances, and as a result he is resentful towards Po. He also proposes to Katsa, but gets turned down, because she will never marry.

• Captain Faun: An independent Lienid ship captain Graced with predicting the weather, she has one blue eye and one pale gray eye. She helps Katsa and Bitterblue by transporting them to Lienid when they are on the run from King Leck.

• Helda: As both maid and friend to Katsa, Helda is one of the few able to look beyond Katsa's Graceling abilities, treating her like a normal girl. After being there to help her through the more dramatic phases in her life, Katsa intends to ask Helda to move on to become Bitterblue's maid, in order to assist her in much the same way.

The Seven Kingdoms

Lienid

Monsea

Estil

Sunder

Nander

Wester

Middluns

Awards and nominations

Graceling was shortlisted for the ALA's William C. Morris YA Award, is an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, was a Cybils finalist (Fantasy/SF category), and was a finalist for both the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy (the SFWA's award for YA given concurrently with the Nebulas) and the Indies Choice Book Awards (Best Indie Young Adult Buzz Book category). Graceling won the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance 2009 Young Adult SIBA Book Award. The book also was awarded:

• Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year 2008
• School Library Journal Best Books of 2008
• Booklist 2008 Top Ten First Novels for Youth
• 2009 Amelia Bloomer List
• 2009 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Finalist
• Nominated for 2010 Washington Evergreen Award
• Nominated for 2010-2011 Eliot Rosewater Award

Reception

Sue Ellen Beaureguard, author of Top 10 first novels for youth on audio of the Audiobook review, said that it had "[m]any layered fantasy adventures."

Publication history

• 2008, USA, Harcourt ISBN 978-0152063962, Pub date 1 October 2008, Hardback

External links

• Author's blog
• Official website

Reviews

• The New York Times