Surprisingly, I liked this book. I say 'surprisingly' because I am not normally a fan of straight up fantasy. I enjoy urban fantasy quite a lot, but regular fantasy has never really interested me. 
 When I found this copy of Graceling on the Bargains shelf at Hastings for $3.99 I figured, "Eh, why not?" I'd read the reviews that complained about Katsa's overly feminist attitude and wondered how I would take that. Honestly, I really didn't feel it was overdone at all. She didn't seem, to me, to be against marriage or children, she just knew she didn't want those things for herself, and I found nothing wrong with that. In fact, she showed great capacity to care for children with how she treated and protected Princess Bitterblue. And I had no qualms with how she loved Po--and she did love him. 
 I found the fantastic elements to this story to be original and interesting. The idea of people 'Graced' with special abilities--some very powerful and others pretty insignificant--was fascinating. I enjoyed Katsa's Grace, but found Po's especially interesting. 
 Of all the characters my favorite had to be Po. He was just such a teddy bear! Such a contrast to Katsa. I adored how he grounded her but didn't change her. He loved her and he respected her. He never wanted her to change for him. How could you not adore that? 
 I also really enjoyed Raffin. He was so crazy and such a refreshing personality. 
 I actually didn't mind Katsa either. I didn't love her but I didn't hate her either. She was a very strong character that never deviated from her values, I respected that. She wouldn't be a person I'd probably want to be buddies with, but I respected her all the same. 
 I gave this story a 3 star rating (which is really more of a 3.5) mostly because I'm just not really into fantasy, as I said before. The pace is rather slow and I found myself not quite sure exactly what the plot was at times. But, as I've noticed in other fantasy novels, this is sort of how fantasy's go. 
 All and all, I enjoyed this and I would recommend others who might like a different sort of story with a strong protagonist and swoony hero to pick this up. But if you're not into strict fantasy, I'd pass.