Graceling was in danger of a low review for most of the book until a pretty solid ending changed my mind. Fire had so much going against it from the start that it had no chance of recovery. I didn't completely hate it, but it was exceedingly uninteresting. I'll just touch on a couple things of note.

A few good things:

Kristin Cashore is a decent writer. By that I mean she is able to describe a scene, write dialog, create a sense of movement, and all the other technical things a writer should be able to do. She also has some interesting ideas for what could make a Fantasy story compelling. Graces, Monsters, neat ideas.

Some bad things:

Kristin Cashore is not a very good storyteller. Or maybe she only has one story in her, and needs to give us a variety of versions of it. Fire was, for all intensive purposes, the exact same story as Graceling. If you were to reduce it to an outline and character sketches it would be quite obvious.

Finally, I feel wrong not mentioning the extreme imbalance in sexual power she gives her characters. I'm all for a historically portrayed low-fantasy where women face the struggles of history. This wasn't that. This was something else entirely, and it's a bit disturbing. I can't recommend young readers to this novel in much the same way as I can't recommend Piers Anthony's [b:A Spell for Chameleon|76664|A Spell for Chameleon (Xanth, #1)|Piers Anthony|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1357166716s/76664.jpg|2501416].