Author: Kim Liggett
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Publication date: October 8, 2019
Pages: 416
Source/format: e-ARC//Publisher
Rating: ☆☆☆☆
Synopsis (from goodreads.com):
A speculative thriller in the vein of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Power. Optioned by Universal and Elizabeth Banks to be a major motion picture!
“A visceral, darkly haunting fever dream of a novel and an absolute page-turner. Liggett’s deeply suspenseful book brilliantly explores the high cost of a misogynistic world that denies women power and does it with a heart-in-your-throat, action-driven story that’s equal parts horror-laden fairy tale, survival story, romance, and resistance manifesto. I couldn’t stop reading.” – Libba Bray, New York Times bestselling author
Survive the year.
No one speaks of the grace year. It’s forbidden.
In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, to 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 a chance to grab one of the girls in order to make a fortune on the black market. Their greatest threat may very well be each other.
With sharp prose and gritty realism, The Grace Year examines the complex and sometimes twisted relationships between girls, the women they eventually become, and the difficult decisions they make in-between.
M Y T H O U G H T S
“They call us the weaker sex. It’s pounded into us every Sunday in church, how everything’s Eve’s fault for not expelling her magic when she had the chance, but I still can’t understand why the girls don’t get a say. Sure, there are secret arrangements, whispers in the dark, but why must the boys get to decide everything? As far as I can tell, we all have hearts. We all have brains. There are only a few differences I can see, and most men seem to think with that part anyway.”
Kim Liggett starts The Grace Year strong summarizing what a grace year is. It's supposed to be a time where young girls at the age of sixteen will release their magic into the wild in order to stop luring men from their beds, to stop making boys go mad, and to stop wives being driven with jealousy.
Tierney James is one of 33 girls who will leave for a grace year. As part of a promise of marriage, a boy will lift a veil of a girl of his choosing on Veiling Day. This year there are only 12 boys. However, Tierney doesn't want to get married. Those who are not paired up with a boy will live a life of hard work in a labor house. The girls must survive a year within the forest fending and foraging for themselves. After being purified, they can live a life as a wife who bears many children and takes care of her husband or to be a laborer in the mills, fields, etc.
Tierney is shocked but mostly furious when she can't set her life on her own terms. Tierney becomes the wild card. Besides not being able to live a life she wants, Tierney is stuck with mean-spirited and controlling Kiersten along with the other girls for a year. Kiersten rules with fear and the girls listen to her a la The Crucible. The madness spreads like crazy. However, Tierney is one of the girls who fights back. Tierney's decision for not giving into Kiersten's whim sparks a beginning of a rebellion. Women are pitting against each other in a catfight while trying to stay away from the poachers. It's the survival of the fittest.
Liggett's YA dystopian novel may be a break from her normal thrillers and horror novels but The Grace Year is poignant and thought-provoking. Her writing is gritty yet harrowing. There are hints regarding her love for horror sneakingly woven into the novel. The inklings of blood from the punishment tree to the madness the girls endure remind me of Liggett's previous books. After all she is the YA horror queen!
The novel does have some gruesome scenes that may not be for the faint of heart. Also, there is a teenage pregnancy present. Innocence is the color white during the childhood of a girl. Blood is the color red during the survival of a grace year. Death is the color black to the binding marriage that a woman endures. These colors are depicted in the hair ribbons in the females' hair.
If you are looking for a dystopian thriller that fuses classics with more contemporary novels, The Grace Year is for you. I agree with many other readers that The Grace Year is one part The Handmaid’s Tale, one part The Crucible, one part The Hunger Games, and one part Lord of the Flies. The Grace Year will become a new classic that will be read and liked by many generations to come.
FAVORITE QUOTES
“ “Someday, you’ll get a flower. It might be a little withered round the edges, but it’ll mean just the same. Love’s not just for the marrieds, you know, it’s for everyone,” she says as she slips a bloom into my hand. Uncurling my fingers, I find a deep purple iris, the petals and falls perfectly formed.”
“ “Hope,” I whisper, my eyes welling up. I don’t hope for a flower from a boy, but I hope for a better life. A truthful life. I’m not usually sentimental, but there’s something about it that feels like a sign. Like its own kind of magic.”
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