I like it when the girl in the novel is not a damsel in distress. When she knows how to fight and stand up for herself and those she cares about. When she knows what she wants and does not depend on any man to make her complete or happy. That's how Katsa is in this novel (of course, it also helps that she is a Graceling).
A Graceling is a person who has a special ability, like someone who is really gifted. This "ability" is called Grace. It can be any ability, something as useless as the capacity to talk backwards or something as impressive as the capability to survive given any situation. Aside from their Grace, the Gracelings stand out because their eyes have two different colors (Katsa's eyes are blue and green, Po's silver and gold). That's how people can tell if someone is Graced. That's also the first indication that a child is a Graceling. The child's eye may settle into two distinctive colors weeks, months and sometimes even years after its birth. When a child's eye settles, you will know he or she is a Graceling but you won't know what the Grace is, there are some Graces which take a while to manifest than others.
The novel is set in a land of seven kingdoms and these kingdoms are ruled by seven extremely capricious kings. The five inner kingdoms - Wester, Nander, Estill, Sunder and the Middluns - once peacefully coexisted. Centuries ago, these lands were ruled by siblings - three brothers and two sisters. Lienid is an island-kingdom, isolated from the other kingdoms by an ocean. Like Lienid, Monsea is withdrawn from the other kingdoms too. How the ocean removed Lienid from the others, is what the mountains did for Monsea.
In most of the kingdoms, the law dictates that Gracelings are to be given up to the kings for their own use. If the Grace is beneficial to the king, the child would continue to work for him. Otherwise, the child would be sent back to his family.
Being a Graceling may be cool, having some extraordinary ability especially if it's a useful one. However, having a useful Grace entails that you would be of service to your king (maybe all your life). It can be burdensome too since people usually avoid Gracelings even if the Grace is harmless and useless. That's why it was difficult for Katsa to have friends because most people usually fear her because of her Grace and so they mostly steer clear of her.
Katsa is the niece of King Randa, the monarch of the Middluns. When her Grace revealed itself, her uncle saw the advantage of having her in his employ. She became some sort of an assassin for her uncle. When some lord would not obey Randa, he would send Katsa to "persuade" him. And Katsa hated her uncle for it. She resented what she was doing for the King but felt helpless that she couldn't do anything but obey his orders.
To somehow make up for what the troublesome kings have been doing on their kingdoms, Katsa started the Council. The Council works on "cases" that the kings ignore, like disappearances of girls who later turn up on a brothel. Or when a man was punished for something his dead brother did because someone had to be penalized. Then, news of their undertakings began to reach people who support their cause for "[e]veryone was tired of the fool kings. Everyone was willing to take some small risk to lessen the damage of their ambition and disorder and lawlessnes."
I like this book, not only because of its heroine but because of the story itself. The concept of having special abilities is not new. Many books and stories have been created and told about this. What, for me, makes this book different from the others that have been written on this topic is that the abilities are not only useful, it mentions also those that are useless. Although it focuses on abilities like that of Katsa's and Po's but at least the novel recognizes all sorts of abilities. Another thing is that I like that the Gracelings have different colored eyes. I don't find it weird, I actually think it's cool.
The story has adventure and mystery because Katsa and Po was in a quest to know the reason behind the kidnapping of Po's grandfather. And in doing so, they discovered and exposed the true nature of one of the Kings.
"But everyone has some kind of power to hurt people. xxx It doesn't mean they do." - Patch
Rating: 5 of 5 STARS
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