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.

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.

Haunting. The perfect October read to get you in that spooky mood. This is one of those books that sinks into you and keeps you stuck for hours, until you've come out the other side. It is a great read for the current political climate and will certainly set your mind spinning. You won't be able to escape.

The Grace Year is described as a female Lord of the Flies by the author and it's dark and disturbing from the very beginning.

Even though this book has a lot of hype, I did find that I enjoyed it, but I didn't quite love it. The plot is interesting and kept me turning the pages because I wanted to find out what happened to Tierney, but the pacing of the book was uneven with some events being drawn out while other times months passed in the blink of an eye. I personally wasn't a fan of how purposely vague this novel was about some things, but can understand why that works for others. I would've liked more background on Garner County and how their traditions came to be. I also felt that some of Tierney's actions were inconsistent with her character. This isn't my usual genre, but if you enjoy YA/dystopian novels with rebellious female leads I think you'll enjoy this one.

Thanks to St Martin's Press, Wednesday Books, Netgalley, Macmillan Audio,and Libro.FM for my ARC and ALC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Audio: Liked the narrator. Includes an interview with the author.

I'm feeling a little mixed about The Grace Year. I absolutely loved the idea of a feminist Hunger Games with relevant metaphor and societal commentary at play but do think it could be executed a bit more compellingly. I did quite appreciate that the author really wasn't afraid to lean into the darkness of her premise and I think that the demo audience (teen girls) could really go for the grittiness of the storytelling and interesting world-building. And for once, I do think that a movie or TV version could be better than the book as it felt quite cinematic at points and I could see it translating well on screen and draw in an even larger audience.