REVIEW - Graceling

Title: Graceling
Author: Kristin Cashore
Genre: YA Fantasy
Got it from: Library
Why I read it: sounded good
Grade: A

Synopsis:
Graceling takes readers inside the world of Katsa, a warrior-girl in her late teens with one blue eye and one green eye. This gives her haunting beauty, but also marks her as a Graceling. Gracelings are beings with special talents—swimming, storytelling, dancing. Katsa's Grace is considered more useful: her ability to fight (and kill, if she wanted to) is unequaled in the seven kingdoms. Forced to act as a henchman for a manipulative king, Katsa channels her guilt by forming a secret council of like-minded citizens who carry out secret missions to promote justice over cruelty and abuses of power.

My review:
First let me start off by saying that I categorize this as a YA novel because that's what it's categorized everywhere.  However, I would probably say it's more on the adult side.  The first half of the book I was thinking I would have my daughter (who is 12) read it after me, because I thought she would really love it.  Then all of a sudden we've got sex.  Sex, birth control, and the main character not wanting to marry at all.  For some people this might be okay.  But as a Christian mother, this is not something I want my child to think is just fine.

On the other hand, I loved the story.  The writing was engaging, the world was fantastic--it was just my kind of story.  Most of it was great.  So I can almost see this one as, if you have the type of relationship with your kid that you can read the same books and talk about them--things that were good and things that weren't--it would make for a great story for them, and a good chance to talk about values. 

While I was reading this I kept wondering why I keep reading the YA chicklit novels that annoy me so bad when there are good YA fantasy that I almost always end up loving.  I think I'll set my sights more on these kind of books.  I would recommend this one for fans of Hunger Games, fantasy lovers, and maybe YA readers, but not necessarily all young adults.