A Real Lady Killer

Graceling by Kristine Cashore (Harcourt, 2008).

Lady Katsa of the Middluns (unsurprisingly, the most central of the Seven Kingdoms) bears a terrible killing Grace. Her ruthless uncle, King Randa, makes good use of Katsa’s skills by having her torture, maim, or kill those who interfere with his governance. Understandably, Katsa doesn’t like living under her uncle’s tyrannical thumb, but it isn’t until Katsa meets Prince Po, a fine fighter (and figure of a man) with a secret Grace, that she begins to believe she can gain her Independence …

Together with Po, Kata sets out to save his cousin, Princess Bitterblue, from her abusive/insane/creepily Graced father. Along the way, Katsa will display her totally l33tin' killing skills by taking on an army (and let's not forget the mountain lion!). Of course, she will also discover her true love, her true self, and her true Grace.

Unfortunately, I didn’t like Graceling as much as I expected to. The plot was quite unique, nearly all the characters were well written, and Katsa was the kind of smart, resourceful, kick-ass heroine I am inclined to like and yet … I don’t find myself dying to read the prequel (Fire) or sequel (Bitterblue). The world of the Seven Kingdoms never seemed as real to me as its inhabitants did and so I'm not dying to revisit it.

"'... a strong-minded woman, equal to any emergency.'"

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (Penguin Books, 2003).

This was my second attempt at reading Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South. The first time was immediately after viewing the BBC production and the film was too much in my mind. I also made the mistake, in my eagerness to "really get into the novel," of reading the introduction first. Since I left college, I never start with introductions as I find they tend to make me read novels in a more scholarly/literary way ... I find myself looking for motive and meaning, device and theme, when I should just be eating up the actual meat of the story.

Anyway, by the time I picked North and South up again I had forgotten enough of the film and the introduction to not be hindered by suppositions as to what awaited me in the novel. I knew it would be good and that was quite enough ...

Margaret Hale, a proud vicar's daughter from rural southern England, must adjust to the changes in her life when her father leaves the Church after a "crisis of conscience" and moves the family to the northern industrial town of Milton (where no-one will know them and he will not be reminded of his failing -- he pays poor thought to his family's ability to cope with this life change and I found his handling of the situation to be rather appalling).

In Milton, Margaret slowly discovers her own inner strengths as she takes over the running of their new (impoverished) household when it becomes clear her mother is too ill (and weak) and her father too impractical (and weak) to do so.

Despite her reduced circumstances, Margaret still entertains the same shocking class prejudices she picked up from living in London with her gentrified relations. She is appalling snobbish and close-minded in her opinion of the industrial North, its manufacturers and tradesmen, its hustle and bustle. Happily, Margaret soon gets a rude awakening from mill owner John Thornton, who is well respected by his peers and his employees, but no gentleman as Margaret would define such a man. As the two interact, Thornton comes to love her even though he knows Margaret will never have him ...

But, of course, she does. In the end. After they both learn not to be all proud and uppity and stop making terrible presumptions about people.

In a nutshell: It's Pride in Prejudice in the Industrial Revolution! (Let's face it, Mr. Darcy would have been so much sexier with his own steam engine ... or is that just me? I like a strong, principled, working hero who will probably not, in a fit of ennui, gamble the family estate away)

Sookie Girl

I read the first five Sookie Stackhouse ("Southern Vampire Mysteries") novels quite a while ago now and liked the series so much I couldn't stop talking about it. Ended up turning The Husband and Mother-in-Law on to them and now they have overtaken me in reading the series and are all fidgety waiting to read A Touch of Dead while I am still stuck at "OMG, Alcide is so irritating!" The sad thing is that I loved the first four Sookie books and truly meant to go on and read more, but Dead as a Doornail (book five) was not so fantastic and ... well, the terrible truth is that the world is full of interesting books and I am, quite frankly, easily distracted ...

Ooo! Shiny thing!

Happily, Beth Fish is hosting a reading challenge to help me "catch up on Sookie and all her friends -- living and undead, fully human and not." I know I don't have to start back at the beginning, but why wouldn't I want to revisit old friends?

I will be (re)reading:

1. Dead Until Dark
2. Living Dead in Dallas
3. Club Dead
4. Dead to the World
5. Dead as a Doornail
6. Definitely Dead
7. All Together Dead
8. From Dead to Worse
9. Dead and Gone

There's also a bunch of Sookie-related stories included in supernatural-themed collections like Many Bloody Returns, Bite, Wolfsbane and Mistletoe, and My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding, but I don't think I'll be revisiting them. Although, who knows? I have a whole year to catch up.

Yay!