Guest blog from Megan Whalen Turner

In September, the postergirlz included Megan Whalen Turner's Attolia books on their list of books to recommend alongside Graceling by Kristin Cashore. Megan graced (no pun intended!) us with her presence at Kristin's chat, then wrote up this guest post:

Yikes, the round-up posts at readergirlz reminded me that it was the end of September (where did it go?) and I hadn't collected my thoughts into a blog post about Graceling.

I've been thinking about the question from the live chat: What's your favorite scene?

My pick is the fight between Katsa and Po when she realized that he reads minds. It's so important to the plot and yet so very far from being a plot-coupon because it rings true - Katsa has a good reason to be angry and Po has a good reason to have deceived her - but also because it is so carefully layered. Katsa is angry because Po lied, but also because he has escaped her fate of being wholly defined by her Grace. The cause of the anger is also the seed for the reconciliation when Katsa realizes she too can assert her own identity.

On top of all that, and maybe the reason I like it best . . . Katsa showed that she may be completely clueless about interpersonal relationships, but she's a smart cookie. Po doesn't have to confess, she figures him out.

-- Megan Whalen Turner