What's your Grace?

Graceling

By Kristin Cashore

Genre: Fantasy

Kick-butt female character. Swoon-worthy companion. Saving a kingdom from an evil ruler. YES, PLEASE!

Katsa has been gifted with a grace. In the kingdoms where she lives, a grace can be any talent – cooking, sewing, fighting, and in her case, killing. The king, her uncle, has put her grace to his own use. But Katsa doesn't want to be the king's personal assassin. Refusing to do his work, she runs away with a new friend, Po to solve a series of mysterious rumours coming out of a neighbouring kingdom. When there, they find that their troubles have only just begun.

How did I go past this book for six years?! My favourite type of story is one where a girl is fighting to keep a kingdom from falling apart. So if you like those stories, pick this book up definitely. I am now putting the next two books in the series on my “to be read” list.

Can we just talk about Po? Po has to be my favourite character in a long time. In fact, he's a new favourite book boyfriend. But really, he's the only person in the kingdom that can spar with Katsa without her having to hold back. In fighting, they are evenly matched. He is intriguing, exotic, intuitive, and hilarious.

Yes, yes, I liked Katsa too. She didn't have it all figured out, but damned if she wasn't going to get her way. The world built slowly. I want more.

5 STARS

Classroom: Not for classroom. Somewhat descriptive romance scenes. 13+