Main Characters: Katsa, Po, Bitterblue
Series: The Seven Kingdoms Series, Book 1
Katsa has been able to kill a man with her bare hands since she was eight—she’s a Graceling, one of the rare people in her land born with an extreme skill. As niece of the king, she should be able to live a life of privilege, but Graced as she is with killing, she is forced to work as the king’s thug. She never expects to fall in love with beautiful Prince Po. She never expects to learn the truth behind her Grace—or the terrible secret that lies hidden far away . . . a secret that could destroy all seven kingdoms with words alone. With elegant, evocative prose and a cast of unforgettable characters, debut author Kristin Cashore creates a mesmerizing world, a death-defying adventure, and a heart-racing romance that will consume you, hold you captive, and leave you wanting more.Man but this was a good book.
It took me a couple of weeks to work up the courage to crack this sucker open because the sheer size of this book kept me scared. LOL. But, my blogging buddy Mollie hasn’t led me astray in any of her recommendations so I pushed through my reservations and am so freaking glad that I did because I loved this book.
This story follows Katsa, who is graced with killing and Po, who is graced with fighting. They’re on a mission to find out who kidnapped Po’s grandfather and why they did it. The journey leads them to some pretty crazy answers and to say that I was highly entertained, is putting it mildly. I loved getting to know both Katsa and Po. I adored Po. From the very beginning, I adored him.
The thing that I loved most about this book was that though Katsa was young and she wasn’t perfect, Cashore did a great job of making me sympathize with her instead of getting rip roaring mad at her for acting foolishly like I get for a great deal of YA books. Even in The Hunger Games, I got annoyed with Katniss from time to time but in this book? I thought Katsa rocked from beginning to end. She was smart, she was fierce and she was deadly and I ate it all up. Screw wanting Katsa to be my best friend, I wanted to BE Katsa. LOL. She was that great.
This book is a great story that will have you at the edge of your seat, wanting to know what happens next. When you put this book down, you’ll be counting the minutes until you can return to reading it. I enjoyed getting to know Katsa, Po and Bitterblue turned out to be a great character as well. For a girl at such a young age, she sure was mature but having to deal with what she had to deal with made it understandable.
I enjoyed all of the fight scenes between Po and Katsa. I enjoyed watching their romance unfold and I totally enjoyed just getting to know all of the characters in this book. I’m anxious to read more from this series and I’m anxious to see what happens next for Po and Katsa, especially with what went down in this book.
If you’re looking for a book that will rock your socks then look no further than this book. It’s got everything you’d be looking for in a book, a great story line, wonderful characters and a romance that will make your heart sigh. Po was a great hero and Katsa was a fantastic heroine. I don’t really have any gripes for this story because I enjoyed it too much. Really, pick up this book and read it. You won’t regret it!
Book cover and blurb credit: http://barnesandnoble.com