Graceling

To be “graced” means you've been born with a special skill and the most telling characteristic that distinguishes the graced from the un- is that the graced have one eye with a different color than the other. Our heroine, the feisty Katsa, has one blue eye and one green. Her grace seems to be superior fighting ability. In her kingdom, one among seven, the king reserves the right to use those graced as he sees fit. Katsa is his enforcer of choice. But she's starting to get ideas of her own. And after meeting a skilled (and graced) fighter from the kingdom of Leinid, Katsa's life takes a decisive turn. This was an easy read, a little too grown up for the younger teens perhaps, and the obstacles facing Katsa are handled well. But I wouldn't classify this as a blazing page-turner either. Also: it's a fairly small cast of characters for a fantasy. This is a stand-alone tale but the author has written a separate book set in the same world. I'm not putting it on my To Be Read list, though.