I received a complimentary copy of this book through Netgalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Unlike many of the girls her age, Tierney James is a girl that longs for a future doing field work rather than becoming one of the "marrieds", under the control and ownership of a husband. Only a percentage of girls get chosen for marriage, so when Tierney unexpectedly gets a veil during the veiling ceremony, it's like an invisible target on her back by jealous girls that will live a life of servitude after their grace year. At sixteen, girl's desirability and sexual attractiveness are seen as "magic" that must be burned out before they can return to society and respectable marriages. They are sent away to a compound for a year, at the mercy of the elements, poachers, and each other and only the strongest survive.

When I was growing up I would tell my parents EVERYTHING about the book I was currently reading. This one was like that for me. My fiance heard ALL about it. I devoured The Grace Year (St. Martin's Press, Wednesday Books), by Kim Liggett after a book blogger I follow on Goodreads said it was her favorite book of the year IN JUNE and tipped her followers off to the fact is was available on Netgalley (thanks Netgalley!)

The Grace Year is a YA dystopian novel marketed to lovers of The Handmaid's Tale and The Hunger Games (I know, I know...aren't they ALL!) And while there is truth to that this novel was so different to me. In this novel all girls are banished from their community for their 16th year of life so they can release the "magic" they would otherwise hold onto that would tempt men. (*insert eye roll here*) This 16th year, better known as "The Grace Year" looms as a terrifying unknown as no one is allowed to speak of what happens during The Grace Year. What's known is that these 16 year olds are branded with their father's crest on the bottom of their foot. All 16 year old women are escorted to exile where they not only have to survive the elements, but they also have to survive each other (think about how catty high school girls to be and AH...this makes sense), as well as poachers that are hunting them to kill and sell their parts on the black market. Escape is not an option. The only options are survival or death. If they do not return by life or my mutilated body parts their younger siblings will then be taken to the outskirts of the community to serve as "women of the night."

This book is un-put-downable. I've seen many reviewers saying that it's all about feminism and I vehemently disagree. While there are undertones of feminism (it is largely a book about how women do or do not work together/support one another) I took SO much more away about how society as a whole treats one another by how these girls interacted. We can be groomed as a society to act a certain way, but when It really comes down to it we make the choice. I believe that's what Liggett's message was.

I read this book four months ago and it still haunts me. I've been telling everyone I think would remotely enjoy this to put the release date on their calendars since June! (It came out this past Tuesday, October 8th by the way so go get it NOW! And then tell me what you think?)

What story have you read that you got something totally different than everyone else seemed to? Tell me about it in the comments!

A copy of this book was provided to me for review by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book has a similar tone regarding women like the Handmaid’s Tale and the story line idea like Lord of the Flies.

Tierney is about to come into her Grace Year, a year where she and the other girls who have started their period and are at the age of 16, leave to a compound and try to get rid of their magic, that drive men in the County wild.
Also the boys that are coming to a certain age or are widowed, can choose one of these girls as their future bride and bestow them with a Veil. Tierney thinks she won’t get chosen and wants to work in the Fields later instead of being trapped in home as a wife.

Tierney is a rebel of some sort and tries to keep the girls together, but she’s working against Kiersten, the “popular” girl.

This story started out really interesting and I couldn’t stop reading and was looking over my shoulder when I heard a noise behind me, lol!

But that ending...the last 14 % were full of twists and turns and then so much stuff going on, but the author skipping ahead a few months slowing things down again...All in all a very good book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ebook copy in exchange for an honest review.

THE GRACE YEAR is a beautiful, brutal horror novel that will have you gritting your teeth and at the edge of your seat. Rooted in metaphor, the specificity of the misogyny and ugliness of the world felt very poignant and relevant to today’s society. I have not recovered. I may never.

I loved The Grace Year. I loved Tierney and Gertie. I loved every bit of danger and magic that touched each page. I wish the pacing would have been a bit faster, but regardless, it was a great book and I recommend it to anyone.

speculative fiction novel about a society where young women are banished into the wilderness on their 16th birthday, believing such a “sabbatical” will rid the girls of their “magical” power over the men in their village. The writing is beautiful and brutal, and while I think female readers will get a lot more out of this one than I was able to, I still came away from the book with an appreciation for the daily struggles and power dynamics women are forced to deal with. Also, don’t f*ck with women. Yikes.

4-4.5 "this is the real magic" stars

When people describe this as Lord of the Flies meets Hunger Games meets Mean Girls I find it's a remarkably accurate description. No one speaks about the grace year, the year long period of time when girls are sent away to live at a camp together to "rid themselves of their magic" during their sixteenth year before being married off or sent to their occupation.

The story follows Tierney, a tom-boyish girl, determined to keep her freedom by not being chosen for marriage and instead planning on working in the fields. Things don't quite go as she plans and the grace year is nothing like what she could have imagined. The story is unforgiving and brutal, raw and insightful, and at it's core a call for women everywhere to stand together, to rebel against norms. I really enjoyed it, felt like it was original in it's storytelling (the book is divided in seasons, instead of chapters) and appropriate for the times. I'm still not quite sure what to make of the very end, but it's definitely got me thinking and not a book I will forget anytime soon.

This book has an amazing beginning and a great ending, but loses itself in the big middle. For me, this was one of those stories that was all potential with only moderate levels of realization. I love the strong feminist undertones, but the main character and the men in her life are underdeveloped, making it hard to invest in the story. It has been called Lord of the Flies meets The Handmaid's Tale, but it does not rise to that echelon of storytelling, which is a shame since it had all the potential in the world! Readers looking for a strong heroine, moderately engaging action and who don't mind instalove might give this novel a look.

This book was so good! 4.5 stars!! Below is the synopsis, it is very well worth the read! :)



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 Yearexamines the complex and sometimes twisted relationships between girls, the women they eventually become, and the difficult decisions they make in-between.

We are all used to new novels being compared to amazing books that have taken the world by storm but rarely do they live up to expectations. The Grace Year is a feminist tale set in a dystopian world that is built so incredibly I felt I was there with the characters living through their life and times. I was absolutely blown away and comparisons to The Handmaids Tale, Lord of the Flies, The Hunger Games and The Power all have a ring of truth to them. I found that once I had started reading I simply couldn't put it down, and I don't find that occurring very often with fantasy reads. The characters are undoubtedly what make this what it is; they are complex individuals and each comes alive on the page. Tierney, our protagonist, is a fierce, stubborn teenager who refuses to bow to the way society demands her to be; either dedicating her life to unskilled, unfulfilling work or being married off at age sixteen.

What I found incredible was that there was no backstory regarding how the world in which they are living became misogynistic and dominated by the needs and wants of men yet you never miss the details that could have been added; we know enough to completely understand and comprehend but it is not dragged down in the unnecessary. It has a style and flair rarely seen in this genre and I feel many people will be picking this up. It deserves a wide audience as it is so exquisitely plotted. It's multilayered and moving, thought-provoking and haunting, oppressive and claustrophobic. It's young adult dystopian fiction at its absolute finest, and I strongly suspect I won't be swept away by a book as much as this for the rest of 2019.

With a potent mix of superb plot, engaging and independent characters, romance, danger, plenty of thrills and some inspirational moral messages, this story has something for everyone. The ending is astonishing and the perfect way to close. The hype is real, people! Many thanks to Del Rey for an ARC.

The Grace Year is THE book to add to your reading list for 2019. If The Handmaids Tale and Hunger Games had a baby, it would be called The Grace Year; YA Dystopia at its finest.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book- the plot was on point, pacing done extremely well and a protagonist to root for. There is enough out there to tell you what this book is about, but I would suggest you just pick up this book and start reading. Get sucked into Garner County, scream at the injustice of it all and go along for the ride.

There were a few things that kept this book from being a 5 star read for me. There are some very definite slow moving parts where I kept thinking to myself “get on with it already”. I would have also liked a little background information on how the “world” and Garner County came to be. What is the history? Why are women treated the way they are? Why must they have a Grace year? A chapter or two would have easily taken care of this.

Finally, I feel like Tierney could have been portrayed to be a stronger female leader. She is certainly set up for it. Who knows, maybe this book will become a series and we will get to see the evolution of Tierney and the women of Garner County.

All in all, I highly recommend this book based on entertainment value alone. This is one that you will want to rip through, so make sure you have a block of time set aside.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for my copy of this book via NetGalley

4 stars

I really had no idea what I was getting myself into when I started reading this. I definitely thought this was going to go one way, but this book went the in the complete opposite direction and I am not mad at it all. This book has been getting compared to The Handmaid's Tale, The Hunger Games and The Hunger Games and I would say those are fair comparisons.

In Gardner county, it is believed that girls have the power and magic to seduce men and cause mischief. In order to protect their town, each girl at the age of 16 leave the county for their grace year, where they are secluded from the rest of society to get rid of their magic and try and survive the horrors of the woods. Tierney is about to leave for her grace year and she is determined to survive. But soon she, along with the other girls, learn the truth of the magic they possess and what exists in the forest beyond their small community.

This was a really great fall read! The way the book was written was extremely atmospheric and it just felt very fall. There are also a lot of thrills and mysterious elements spread throughout the book that made it perfect for people looking for more creepy reads in the Halloween season, like me. I really loved the beginning of the book and all the mystery that is surrounding this county and the way everything worked. There was a lot of interesting commentary on male dominated societies and what it means to be a woman. There were a ton of twits and turns throughout the book that I did not see coming and really helped keep me on the edge of my seat. The middle of the book lost me a little, which is one of the reasons I am not giving this book a full five stars.

I felt that Tierney was a very strong character in the book. I loved her self discovery arc and how she really came into her own throughout the course of the novel. She dealt with a lot from the other girls and other people in the book and she did not let that stop her from reaching her goals and being herself. I also found the character of Kiersten very interesting. Although not the nicest of people (to put it mildly), I was still fascinated by her character and wanted to get to into head and see just what she was thinking.

Overall I really enjoyed this book. It did drag a little in the middle, but it had a lot of interesting commentary on society and it was the perfect creepy fall time read. If you enjoyed Wilder Girls, you will probably like this one as well.

What feels like an blend of The Hunger Games and The Handmaid’s Tale and perhaps a little of The Lord of the Flies, Kim Liggett’s The Grace Year is nevertheless a page-turner drawing the reader into a gruesome world of subjugated women, lascivious and barbaric men, and seeming hopelessness.

Tierney James, the middle James daughter, has lived 16 years pretty much as the son her father never had. She has learned survival skills, ventures into forbidden areas, and has maintained a friendship with Michael, even though they’re at the age when girls and boys should no longer be friends. At 16, the girls are selected by the boys for marriage. Because she has alienate most everyone and doubts any boy would choose her (which is how she wants it), Tierney is planning to happily be a castout and work in the fields. But she has to survive the Grace Year first.

Liggett’s writing is very good, sharp yet offering some poetic moments. Mostly readable, some passages seemed too dense. Or maybe that was me.

I had several problems with the novel. One was setting and world building. Is this a dystopian settlement of the past, present, or future? I felt from descriptions that the setting was near the Great Lakes or the mid-west. But couldn’t determine the setting with regard to time, which would have helped me understand the dynamics better.

The romance that enters the middle of the novel stopped me from reading for a bit. While I understand why it was important, to some degree, and even enjoyed the couple, it felt off, as if Tierney is allowed a momentary paradisaical respite from the horrors. And perhaps that is it. Perhaps she is to represent Eve and the downfall of the society of Garner County.

The Grace Year offers mystery, ghost stories, repugnant human behavior, quests for survival and hope. Despite the few problems I had with the novel, I finished it quickly and would recommend it to readers who enjoy dystopian YA novels although with the caveat that it has many grim aspects so the reader should be on the older reading range of YA.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Grace Year is being listed as a dystopia and I would say that doesn't entirely describe it - the violence experienced by the women in the Grace Year is very much a part of our world; there is a historical aspect to the setting, instead, with their corsets, the witch trials like execution, and the attitudes towards female purity. In any case, the book is mainly about misogyny and more specifically, internalized misogyny. Divided into five parts for each of the seasons, and one for the end of their banishment, the story tells the story of an ongoing 'rite of passage' for all the girls of the town in their 16th year - where they are banished to an encampment on an island, and have to survive the year and 'burn out their magic'.

The first part - Autumn - is full of injustices and the bullying the girls, and specifically, Tierney, have to face. She describes how the men in the town treat their wives like broodmare, exchanging for a new one when they are tired of the old one simply by accusing the latter of harboring magic. The girls are mere property, even in death, where their parts are used in the apothecary, and the pervasive rape culture filled me with enough 'WTF' to go around for the whole book. In the encampment, the theme is internalized misogyny with Kiersten taking every opportunity to bully her and the other girls joining in because they have been taught to mistrust each other. Tierney's attempts to use her survival skills to build them drinking and eating supplies go in vain, as Kiersten manipulates the girls into believing they all have magic that they need to use up. Tierney doesn't believe in the magic, but things go crazy for quite a while, and the threat of poachers outside the fence and the fate of her younger sisters keeps her from running.

As the story goes on, she learns to see the truth beyond what she already knows. While she has been more enlightened than the other girls, she still has had a blind spot due to her preconceived notions. There's an understanding of the violence, and a gentler resolution to it; the book doesn't make any wild explosive claims of a happily ever after, but delivers us a conclusion that makes us hope for more. With an open ending, Tierney's story may well deserve another installment, but the point that this story was trying to drive home was already well done so yes, it succeeded in telling the story it wanted to.

Overall, it is an evocative and feminist story about growing up as women, with careful attention to nuances about power and privilege.

I stop to watch the horses in the paddock being groomed by the guards for the journey to the encampment, their manes and tail braided with red ribbons. Just like us. And it occurs to me, that’s how they think of us...we’re nothing more than in-season mares for breeding.’

I honestly went into this story thinking I wasn’t going to like it...16 year old girls banished so they can release their ‘magic’ into the wild and return to be married off. I downloaded the story on a whim and I let it sit on my kindle for weeks. I don’t know why I thought that way but once I started reading I couldn’t put it down! In fact I read it until I finished.

This is ‘The Handmaids Tale’ and ‘Lord of the Flies’ rolled into one. Everything starts out innocent enough but when the girls ‘magic’ sets in...these girls become vicious!

I highly recommend

Thank you Netgalley and Publishers for granting me early access to "The Grace Year".

This book did top my favorite reads this year, however I'm currently in the middle of a major move, and will definitely come back at a later time and write out a full review and rating.

Thank you so much!

This was an engaging read that pulled me in with all its complexities. A story that is as gripping as it is gut wrenching, I thought that this was not always an easy book to read. Not because it wasn't good but because today's world lends it such a feeling of plausibility. I found myself to be uncomfortable because of the many horrible truths that are blended into and combined with what could be a look into a terrifying future world that could be looming on the horizon. This is a read that will make you think and make you feel.

No one talks about the Grace Year. Not the girls who are getting ready for it, magic bursting with burgeoning magic, nor the girls who have returned, maimed and magic-free. Tierney doesn’t know what her year in the wilderness is going to be like - but she is ready to find out…

I love love LOVED this book. It’s very Handmaid’s Tale/Lord of the Flies/Hunger Games, all mashed together - and it’s INCREDIBLE. I could not put it down. I loved Tierney and her strength and dynamic energy, her refusal to fall in line and follow the crowd despite her fears and doubts.

Thank you to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for giving me the opportunity to read this adventure of a book.

I'm the type of person that avoids hyped books, but when the publisher was granting wishes for this one on Netgalley I decided to give it a shot. This dark dystopian novel did not disappoint. While I'm not going to summarize this one because I'm sure you've seen it everywhere, I am going to share some of my favorite aspects of this book (without any spoilers).

I loved Tierney's character. She was a strong rebellious sixteen year old that just wanted more for herself and the women of Garner County. Her character immediately hooked me and I kept reading to find out how her grace year ends.

While I'm not usually into dark gory books, this one was mild enough that I was able to enjoy it. While everyone fears the seductive magic of the grace year girls, their bodies are valuable on the black market. So the girls must evade the poachers that can become rich by harvesting their bodies (which is lighly described in the book).

Despite everything else going on, this book does have some romance in it. I'm a sucker for a good love story, and you'll definitely get an epic love story in this one. While this definitely isn't the focus of the book, it did help lighten the darkness of this novel.

While this book isn't perfect, it is definitely one that will stick with you for a long time. I've found myself thinking about it multiple times and I reread the last chapter a couple times already. This is one I can see myself rereading and I highly recommend you add it to your TBR!

Thank you Netgalley and Wednesday Books for my gifted e-galley in exchange for an honest review. A positive review was not required.

This page turner book is a mix of The Handmaid's Tale with Hunger Games. You will get a society so messed up that nobody knows what to believe. You will get girls fighting off for their lives - until the last one survives. The Grace Year is a year that girls take away from the city. They get together in the forest and have to struggle to survive that year as they try to get rid of their magic so they can be better wives. If they escape, they are hunted down. If they stay, they will fight to survive. And if they survive, they will come back either to a promised husband waiting for them or to work with something else. Overall, it is a pretty interesting story, told in the point of view of Tierney, one of the girls that go out to their Grace Year.