Books Review: Graceling and Fire

Last night I finished Graceling by Kristen Cashore.  I actually listened to it. I do more listening to books than reading nowadays.  After all, I have 12-16 loads of laundry a week, 2 loads of dishes a day, a huge house to clean, homework with four children, piano lessons (which has included waiting outside the school in the car for an hour before school gets out to make sure we get there on time), and well, I think you get the idea.  It’s more conducive to my lifestyle right now to listen to books while doing other things.  And, in fact, sometimes I want to listen to the book so it actually motivates me to get up and make my “housework” more enjoyable.

This audiobook really bugged me.  Not the book itself, but the recording.  It was a live cast recording.  So, there was a narrator, and a cast of characters.  It took me a while to used to hearing the different voices, but I never liked the little music clips that came on when the characters were running, or when there was a break in a chapter.  It was quite annoying.  When I am reading/listening to a book, I don’t necessarily want theatrics.

Having said that, I liked the book enough.  I actually read the book that other people are calling the sequel to Graceling about a year ago.  And, that may have ruined Graceling for me, but I doubt it.  Fire was much better suited to my liking.  I enjoyed that one so much that I’ve listened to it two or three times … when I haven’t found another book to listen to.

So, this is a review for both books … because, really, they are so, so, so similar in theme, elements, and plotline.

In Graceling, the reader is transported to another world in which there are people who are called “gracelings.”  A graceling is a person who shows an extreme talent for specific things.  It could be climbing trees, singing, fishing, or even reading minds.  As soon as it is known that they are a graceling, they become the property of the king. 

The main character is a graceling, named Katsa, with the unique grace of killing.  So, obviously, she is the pet of the king … rather she is the king’s thug.  She’s sent out to bully his subjects into submission when they show even the slightest chance of disobedience.

Katsa meets up with another graceling, and they befriend each other mainly because his grace enables him to be an appropriate opponent for Katsa.  They begin to practice together, and eventually set off on a mission of their own.

In Fire, the setting is not the same land as Katsa’s.  It is a different land in which there are no gracelings.  But, there are “monsters.”  A monster is a normal animal who is distinguished as a monster by the bright colors of their fur, feather, eyes, etc.  (There are monster tigers, raptors, bugs, etc.)  But, in addition to that characteristic, monsters also have the ability to control your mind.  They lure their prey to them.  So, the people in the land have learned to close their minds to the monsters.

The main character is a human monster, named Fire for the color of her hair.  She is both revered and feared because she has the ability to control the people around her.  There is political unrest in her land, and the king wants to use her unique abilities as a monster to help determine who is trying to seize his throne.

There is one character who actually crosses from the land in Graceling into the land in Fire.  When I listened to Fire, I hated that character so much that I put off reading Graceling for a long time.  But, as I read Graceling I found that he wasn’t really in the book as much as I anticipated.

I like the growth of the intrigue in Fire much more than in Graceling.  It’s almost as if Graceling was written for a more immature audience than Fire … not in the sexual innuendo department (of which there is a bit), but in the sense that there is more going on in Fire, there are more loopholes to jump through.

In all, I liked both books, and will probably read Bluebell (the next book in the series) when it comes out.  But, I thoroughly enjoyed Fire much more and will probably not read Graceling again.  So, I give Graceling 3.5 stars because it felt like the author tried to force the character development, and I didn’t like the parallel similarities to Fire.  I give Fire 4.5 stars because the pace of the story was right up my alley, and the characters and plot are more developed.  Perhaps reading these books in the right order would have made a difference.  Even so, I would recommend both of these books to my friends.