Graceling!

I have weird ethical issues with discussing books in this blog I've reviewed elsewhere. Because I review anonymously (mostly), there's no way to connect my opinions in this blog with opinions that have been published in a review journal; I feel like this is cheating, and gives my opinion double weight. I don't want anyone to think to themselves, "well, I saw two different reviews which thought the plot of Breaking Dawn made perfect sense, and there was nothing Mary-Sueish about Bella in the book's second half at all, so since two different reviewers said it, it's more likely to be true!" (For the record: I did not review Breaking Dawn, and if I had, I wouldn't have said that. But I suppose in the spirit of full disclosure I should add that I did review the other three books in the series.)

Anyway, this all brings me to Kristin Cashore's fabulous debut, Graceling. I keep forgetting that these days there are plenty of reasons I see manuscripts and galleys which have nothing to do with my reviewing the books. I didn't review this book -- in fact, I couldn't have, because the author is a friend of mine. (I know that's not actually considered to be a real ethical dilemma in professional reviewing, but it's an ethical dilemma for me.) But if I had reviewed this book, and I hadn't known Kristin, I would have given it a big fat star*.

I don't think the book is perfect, by any means. There aren't many books I do think are perfect, and offhand I can't think of any. But oh, I got so wrapped up in this heroine, in her choices, in her dilemmas, in this world where there are people and magic powers which aren't just McGuffins. The book is full of BFFs, which is a major pull for me in fiction.

Get, read, love.



* diceytillerman, I don't think I even realized we still had places in our vocabulary where "fat" could be a positive descriptor!