Graceling, by Kristin Cashore, tells the story of two very powerful and different young-adults – Katsa and Po – who form a strong bond through mutual interests: fighting. The characters are what many would call “graced”. They possess unique powers and skills that set them apart from the general population. Although The Seven Kingdoms – Wester, Nander, Eastill, Sunder, Middluns, Monsea, and Lienid – seem to be at peace, all is not well.  After a mysterious kidnapping takes place, Katsa and Po must go on a mission through the kingdoms to find the unknown criminal.
            In my opinion, the author did a wonderful job in making everything in the story seem more realistic, as seen in the development of her characters: Katsa and Po.  Katsa is a graced fighter and survivor. As the niece of Randa, the King of Middluns, she should have an easy life; but that is not the case. After discovering her dangerous yet useful talent, her uncle began using her as his personal weapon – whether it be to assassinate an enemy or collect some overdue debt. Po is also of royal blood – the son of the King of Lienid. Po was born with a grace, sensing people. He has the ability to sense people’s presence, their movements, and even their thoughts. Po is not a mind reader but he can sense people’s thoughts when they are thinking of him, which makes it so easy for him to trust and befriend Katsa.
            Graceling is a very well-written novel. Figuring out one scene to the next was quite straightforward and required little-to-no effort. The language demonstrated by the characters depicted the medieval era of the novel very well. For example, when communicating simple phrases, the author makes it sound very proper. For example, when describing how much time has passed by, Katsa communicates with such sophistication – “ ‘A quarter hour, no more,’ she said” (Cashore 5). The overall tone – suspenseful and humorous – was successfully carried out throughout the entire book. Kristin Cashore made this book quite easy to read. The vocabulary wasn’t extremely difficult to understand and the sentence fluency was very smooth.
Kristin Cashore also threw in some concepts that are still important today such as social rankings, marriage, and gender equality. For example, when discussing the topic of marriage, Katsa wants to remain lovers with Po but doesn’t want to get married because she feels that she would no longer belong to herself. The characters of the novel were also very relatable. Although this is a fictional story about people with powers, the characters had real human emotions and realistic reactions. “She wanted to cause him pain for taking a place in her heart that she wouldn’t have given him if she’d known the truth” (Cashore 146). I enjoyed following Katsa on her journey of discovering herself and her true powers.
            I found myself enjoying this book very much. The amount of suspense and action constantly kept me wondering what was going to happen next. For two days straight, I did nothing but read this book. This novel has the perfect combination of action, adventure, romance, and magic. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who enjoys adventurous fictional stories.