I've had Graceling for a while now. It's one of those books I bought for cheap because of all the hype about it, and then put it on my shelf to collect dust. Since I've been on break I've been trying to actually get through all of my tbr shelf, and I finally starting reading Graceling. However, I wasn't able to get very far. The fact that I had some issues with the writing, combined with the idea that I would much rather spend my time reading a book I actually enjoyed rather than forcing myself to read this one, made me give up on finishing this book. 
 Let's dive in on the issues, shall we? 
 1) Awkward writing 
 Something about the writing in this books struck me as... off. It felt like Cashore was trying to merge their writing style with what they believed a typical fantasy tale sounds like. Using the word "for" instead of "because" or "since," and awkward phrasing in general made it feel like a chore to read, and I winced every time I came across one of these sentences (which was often). I understand why Cashore might have written like this, but I don't think it came off very well. 
 2) Lack of emotion 
 I just didn't feel connected to the main character. Maybe it was the writing style, but even though we were given a glimpse into her emotions, I still felt as if I was at a distance. Which was not just because the book was in third person. 
 3) Place names 
 This was a minor annoyance, but boy did it bug me. It felt like the names of locations were done pretty lazily, with directions adapted into locations. I almost lost it when I read that the main character was from Middlun, which is the kingdom in the middle. In all fairness, I have read the A Song of Ice and Fire books, and I know that the Western land mass is called Westeros and that people refer to the Northern area as "The North," but George R.R. Martin's world building is a lot more fleshed out, so that the "lazy" naming choices are few compared to the total location names, unlike in Graceling. 
 4) Poor World-Building 
 This is mostly just one issue but... that little throwaway detail about the seven kingdoms being ruled by siblings once upon a time made absolutely no sense to me. How would that even work? Wouldn't that mean that the seven kingdoms were united, and that the power was divided between the siblings? Why would they do that? But the book never explicitly stated that the kingdoms were united, just that they were ruled by siblings. Was this through marriage? Even that seems kinda tricky though. Wouldn't the kingdoms be worried about one family gaining too much power, and so not everyone would have a marriage agreement with that one family? Or did each sibling decide to claim a kingdom for themselves and fight the others? But again, wouldn't it be much more important to point out the fact that the seven kingdoms used to be one, instead of that they used to be ruled by siblings? Seriously, this really bothers me. 
 5) I've seen it done better 
 This is what actually convinced me to put down Graceling for good. The fact that I have read (and loved) similar series and enjoyed them a lot more. For the high-fantasy adult side that Graceling was trying to capture, there is of course A Game of Thrones (and all the other books in that series). For YA, I have two series, both medieval fantasies with a bit of romance. The first is The Young Elites, which covers a bit more of the mystical side of things, for those of you who enjoyed the idea of people being "Graced" with some type of power. The second is An Ember in the Ashes, which covers the "forced into killing" plot a lot better than Graceling does. As in, you actually get to see that guys emotions. 
 I think that's about it. As a disclaimer, this is more of a rant than anything, and got a bit longer than I expected. I think overall I'm just bummed that this was a disappointing book. I was really looking forward to it.