The Graceling Series

A coworker introduced me to this YA fantasy series, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed them. There are two out so far: Graceling and Fire. The third book in the series, Bitterblue, is due out in May. (They had copies at our national sales meeting, but alas, they were for display only!) 

I am not a huge straight-up fantasy fan. I like my fantasy with a dose of reality, snark, or dark humor. But The Graceling series sucked me in regardless. It took me awhile to get into the world Cashore had built, but once I was immersed in the ins and outs of her mythology, I couldn’t put the books down.

Graceling is about a young woman, Katsa, whose “grace” (i.e., a supernatural skill or gift) is to kill people with her bare hands. She is used as the king’s bully, until she meets someone whose grace matches her own, and she ends up on a journey to stop a madness spreading through the seven kingdoms. 

What I loved about this book was the character of Katsa and the journey she goes on to discover who she truly is. She has to fight (literally and figuratively) to strip off the lies people have told her about herself. She realizes who she is truly meant to be and learns to live from her true self, and it’s a pretty amazing transformation.

Fire is a companion book to the series. It takes place a few decades before Graceling, and tells the story of Fire, a monster girl who can read minds. She ends up entangled in the burgeoning war within The Dells, and, as with Katsa, she discovers who she really is in comparison to whom society demands that she be. She realizes she does not have to follow in the footsteps of her parents – she is, in fact, an individual, separate and whole from her father (a monster who lived up to that name).

Both young women are fantastic role models for teen girls today. They show that it is more than okay to own who you truly are, celebrate your strengths, and not to change just to be accepted by others. Both books are worthy additions to any YA library.

So with that being said, I deem both Katsa and Fire as Girls on Fire! Woo!

Girls on Fire

There are so many amazing female heroines in young adult literature right now. I really wish they had existed back when I was in high school.* Back then, I could have used someone to shake me and say, “Boys are not everything! Boys are not the goal! Also, they DO think you’re pretty and funny, so stop dressing like a lumberjack and writing cryptic poetry about them and just live your life!” But alas, I did not have that. So I dressed in lots of flannel and pined away for boys who did, in fact, like me, but they were in high school and probably didn’t want a girlfriend who dressed like a fisherman from the Pacific Northwest.

I digress. 

What I’m trying to say is, I think it is vitally important for young girls and young women to have empowering female role models in literature (and all media). When I come across an awesome female protagonist in my reading, I’ll make sure you know about her, a Girl on Fire.

Which brings me to the original Girl on Fire, Katniss Everdeen of The Hunger Games trilogy. She is brave, smart, witty, loyal, and she always thinks for herself. She does not allow herself to be defined by her relationships with men, or by the labels society has given her. I’ll write more about The Hunger Games in future posts, but want to give Katniss her due here. Thank you, Suzanne Collins, for writing such an empowering, brave character for girls to look up to.

Coming soon: actual book reviews!

*Note: I'm sure strong heroines did exist in publishing in the 90s; I just wasn't reading those books at the time. I was too busy watching Kids in the Hall reruns** and planning how to ask my crush(es) to prom.

**always a valuable use of time