Publication date: October 8 2019
Published by: Wednesday Books
Genre: New Adult, Dystopian, Violence, Mystery, Suspense, Dark, Romance
Rating:
Girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, drive women mad with jealousy. They believe their very skin emits a powerful aphrodisiac, the potent essence of youth, of a girl on the edge of womanhood. That’s why they’re banished for their sixteenth year, to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage. But not all of them will make it home alive.
Sixteen-year-old Tierney James dreams of a better life—a society that doesn’t pit friend against friend or woman against woman, but as her own grace year draws near, she quickly realizes that it’s not just the brutal elements they must fear. It’s not even the poachers in the woods, men who are waiting for their chance to grab one of the girls in order to make their fortune on the black market. Their greatest threat may very well be each other.
To be at odds with your nature, what everyone expects from you, is a life of constant struggle.
The Grace Year is undoubtedly one of the most anticipated YA dystopian books of the year. With its Handmaid Tale-ish feel, both of them being, more or less, feminist manifestos, it has definitely managed to create a buzz around it, and for good reason.
Make no mistake: The Grace Year is advertised and marketed as a YA book, but it is brutal, raw and chock full of violence.
The story is about Tierney and her Grace Year-an annual ceremony all the 16 year old girls of the county must go through in order to cleanse themselves of their magic that has been known to affect men, and come back a year later purified and ready to wed. They are sent off to a remote campground, forced to live under disgusting conditions, very few resources, and the fear that if they step out, they will get grabbed by poachers, who would kill them, skin them alive and sell their magic-soaked parts for a small fortune.
Doesn't that sound horrifying?
The whole concept of the Grace Year is a symbolism of the absolute disregard and pure hatred the men of the county, the pious and upstanding citizens, have for the women's existence, their daughters', their nieces', their friends'. They want them out of their sight so they are not tempted to have them near during puberty, only to return (if they return), already someone else's property. It is obvious that the men fear the women's strength and power and they are doing everything they can to constantly put them down and make them turn against each other.
In other words, welcome to planet Earth 2019.
Plot wise, The Grace Year was simply amazing. Even though it was a difficult story to get through and it made me feel dirty and disgusting throughout, I loved its originality and I wholeheartedly felt all the rage and heart break Liggett poured into it. Her writing and use of symbolisms and allegories were spot on (the use of flowers to express emotions even in a dreary and awful place such as the county was brilliant).
If I had one tiny complaint it would be about how fast paced the book was, especially in the beginning. Parts that were important and they should have been focused on more, got kinda swept under the rug, and I found myself getting whiplash from how quickly the scenes changed.
Also, apart from four big chapters and an epilogue, the book doesn't have any other breaks in between which made it hard to read at times. I got confused when the story went from here to there, day to night, with no indication of a change.
More paragraphs would have been great and less ellipses even greater!
That being said, this is an ARC, so I hope the final book will be more carefully edited before it gets published.
Tierney I liked enough but definitely not a huge fan. I was all for what she was representing and her loyalty and self sacrificing nature, but not being privy to much information about her before the Grace Year, it was hard for me to understand where her martyr syndrome came from. Yes, I got that she always had a rebellious side but how come, all of a sudden from day one, did she decide to save all the girls and change the status quo in the county, when she hadn't spared the girls one thought before the Grace Year? Also, for all her talk of a revolution, she was too quick to ride off to the sunset with Ryker when it suited her, and not only leave the Grace Year girls behind, but leave all her family behind and risk them getting severely punished for her desertion. I thought it was very selfish of her and very out of character, when she was presented as nothing but incredibly altruistic up until then.
I didn't really have any problem with the rest of the characters, I liked them all. All the Grace Year girls were fantastic, Tierney's mom, Ryker, but mostly Michael, representing the 1% of the male population supportive of the change, which I think is pretty accurate, if not optimistic. A meager percentage, but we'll take what we can get.
The Grace Year speaks to the heart of all the women who just have had enough. Women who have been wronged, put down, repressed and silenced for way too long.
Even though its start is bleak, there is a clear and very optimistic message in its heartbreaking ending: if we stand together, there is nothing we can't accomplish. Things can and will change.
It's as simple as that.
Snatched it from NetGalley when it was up for grabs for like a day or two. I DID NOT request it.
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