Katsa is a Graceling, which is a person who possess a very specific skill and is set apart physically by mismatched eyes (in Katsa's case she has one brilliant blue eye and one green eye). The skill vary by person, some are amazing cooks, some are brilliant gardeners, some read minds, Katsa kills. Ever since she was little she has been able to defend herself in the most definitive of ways. In her kingdom the Middluns any person that is Graced belongs to the King. Katsa is King Randa's niece and also his enforcer, he sends her to hurt or kill anyone whom he deems in
need of punishment. To counterbalance these heinous acts she is forced to do Katsa along with her cousin the Prince Raffin, Lord Giddon and Oll captain of the Kings spies form the Counsel, which tries to right the wrongs and protect the people, all in secret of course. One of these Counsel missions leads Katsa to rescue Grandfather Tealiff the father of the current king of Lienid of of the seven kingdoms that makes up our little world. All of this leads to Katsa meeting the youngest son of the king of Lienid, Prince Po who is Graced with fighting (his eyes are gold and silver). The two start to regularly spar, Katsa enjoying the ability to use her full force without killing her opponent. Po tells the Council that he is trying to figure out who ordered the kidnapping of his grandfather and why. Katsa gets sent to force a lords daughter to marry for the benefit of the King and finds she can no longer make her self do the King's dirty work. Katsa runs away with Po to Monsea, a little kingdom separated from the rest by high mountains. They finally figure out that the King Leck of Monsea, who has a reputation of being extremely kind is actually a monster who can control peoples minds with a suggestion. They continue on their journey, falling in love in the process and Po reveals that his true Grace is his ability to sense everything and everybody around him. He has kept it a secret to keep himself from becoming a pawn to any king. They also discover Katsa does not have a killing Grace, but a survival Grace and that killing and hurting people is just one manifestation of it, she can also heal quickly, go on very little sleep, always catch or find food, and always get a fire lit. This makes Katsa feel more like a person and less like a monster. They eventually run into King Leck and his army and watch him murder his own wife in front of them (who just happens to be Po's aunt). King Leck uses his Grace to convince people that it was an accident, including
Katsa, Po's Grace however keeps him safe from Lecks mind numbery (that is really a word...I swear) and grabs Katsa and gets her out of there. They find the child Bitterblue (King Leck's daughter) who King Leck is hunting and promise to gt her to safety. Po is injured pretty severely when he goes after Leck on his own and Katsa and Bitterblue must leave him in a cabin hidden in the woods. Katsa takes Bitterblue (who is one of the best characters in this book) and heads over the impassable mountain pass. This is one of the most effectively described scenes I have ever read, I actually get cold and tired whenever I read it. They finally make it over the pass and onto a Lienid ship. They are taken to Po's castle to try and get help from his family, but it is to late Leck has already beaten them there. King Leck bends everybodies mind to his will, but when he threatens to expose Po, Katsa's mind clears enough for her to kill him. Bitterblue is now the queen of Monsea and they take her back to claim her throne and to find Po. Po however has another secret, the injuries he sustained while fighting Leck have left him blind. This causes him to be depressed for a while, but then he learns to use his Grace to "see" things with his senses. The story ends with Katsa setting up training camps for girls to learn self-defense, Bitterblue starting to help her kingdom recover, and Po off to settle things in Lienid with a promise to meet up with Katsa later.The first time I read this book a couple of years ago, I remember loving everything about it, a kick-ass heroine, a crazy King, a journey across the continent all my favorites. Reading it a second time I still really like it, but for some reason not as much as the first time. I'm not sure if I have lost all patience with teenage angst, or if rereading it I picked up on things I did not the first time, not really sure.
Things I loved. I love the concept of the Graces, I love stories that have a special something that comes in a variety (does that make sense?). The Tamora Pierce series Circle of Magic does this really well too. I love all the different ways a person could be Graced and the different ways people choose to utilize that Grace. I like the idea of the seven Kingdoms, each with it's own people and customs, but still all close enough to have an effect on each other. I like that the main character goes on a personal journey, starting as a pawn of her king with seemingly few options, to putting together the Council, to leaving the king's service all together. I love, love, love the character of Bitterblue. She starts as an understandably terrified small 10 year old child, who has witnessed horrible things including the murder of her mother at the hand of her father. Eventually as she begins to trust people she turns into this snarky, smart, intelligent young lady. She is nowhere near as physically dominating as Katsa and Po, which is great. I think the character of Bitterblue shows that there is more than one way to be a kick-ass girl.
Things I did not love quit so much. The execution of the Graces was a little spotty to me, the few people we meet with Graces seem to have no parameters placed on their skills, it seemed that especially for Po and Katsa a new aspect of their Grace would appear anytime the story needed it to overcome some obstacle. I'm not 100% sure how hurting other people on the orders of the king is part of survival. Po seemed a little to perfect at times, always open when Katsa was closed off, skilled, sensitive, even able to overcome his blindness fairly quickly (seriously he went from struggling and depressed over his blindness to the simple "oh I just accept my Grace and now I can sense and make sense of everything" all in one sentence). The love story was pretty run of the mill, the author tried to make it different by throwing the whole "I will love you, but I won't marry you and I can leave at any time" stuff in there, but as soon as Katsa acknowledged her feelings, it seemed that she fell right into the "oh Po you are the love of my life and all I can think about is you and if you are unhappy so am I and since you are not here your all I can think about sad face" (holy run on sentence batman). This is all personal dislikes and really most people dig this kind of story so it is not a deal breaker. I am still not 100% sure the reasoning Leck had for kidnapping Grandfather Tealiff, other than to make his wife miserable.
Overall I am excited to read Bitterblue, I hope the author keeps a lot of the same sass the character had in this book. I read Fire a companion book to this one and loved it even more than this book so this author has a pretty good track record with me so far. Also these books have the best covers ever! (well except for Zombies vs Unicorns cause I don't think anything can top that cover). I would recommend this book to almost any reader, especially people who like fantasy, fighting, kick-ass girls and an interesting fairly well executed premise.
Have you ever been disappointed in a reread? How many ways are there to actually write a love story? Do you love secondary characters as much as I do?
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