Defiantly one of the best books I've read this year! This is reminiscent of "The Handmaid's Tale" but with a magical realism twist. A highly compelling read that I didn't want to put down.

From the minute I read the blurb for The Grace Year, I knew that I wanted to read it. It had all the earmarks of a book that I would love. A strong female main character and a storyline that seems to be fantastic. I am glad that I read The Grace Year. It ended up being all that and then some!!

The plotline of The Grace Year sucked me in. It was well written and fast. Yes, quick. This book took place over the girls 16th year, and it flew. Oh, man, it did fly. I loved it!!

I liked Tierney. She was one of the most influential female main characters that I have read to date. I liked that in a society that viewed women as the lesser sex, she wasn’t afraid to voice her opinion. I loved that she didn’t want a man to make her happy. But I felt that her behavior in the last half of the book contradicted that. But that is what made me like her character so much!!!

Tierney and Ryker’s storyline was interesting to read. I am not going to get into it because there are some significant spoilers. All I have to say is that there were times where I was heartbroken and then times where I was elated. I know, such a contradiction but once you read the book, you will understand.

The plotline with Hans surprised me. I was not expecting him to do what he did. I put the book down and said, “No way.” Then picked the book back up and continued reading. It explained so much. So much!!!

I do want to comment on the women in the village. I thought one thing when I started reading the book. By the end of the book, my view about them changed. Tierney’s mother was a huge one.

The end of The Grace Year made me cry. All I have to say is that it was bittersweet. Because of the way it ended, I am hoping that there is a book 2.

The Grace Year is haunting and beautiful. It kept me up way too late, reading for hours until I finished it–it is absolutely unputdownable. The writing is evocative, and Liggett masterfully paints at an atmospheric and disturbing world that rings true, despite its horrors.

This book is extremely readable and entertaining, but I must say something was missing for me. The character development fell a little flat, and I found myself wishing for more focused character development for Tierney and her peers. In addition to the lack of character growth, a romance appears about halfway through the book and seemed to nearly derail the entire anticipated plot.

Instead of focusing on the girls and their survival, the book narrows in on Tierney's romance. While it was an interesting way to add a layer to the worldbuilding by portraying another perspective through Tierney's relationship, it overall feels like a complete change of direction in terms of tone and plot.

Of course, the romance is alluring and fun to read about. I don't think I would have enjoyed the novel quite as much as I did if it hadn't been included. I love romance, it just didn't feel like a perfect fit the way it ended up in this book. I just wanted Tierney's development to be stronger and without the influence of a love interest. Can you tell I'm conflicted?!

Don't get me wrong––I really enjoyed reading this book. It's a thrilling, dangerous adventure that builds up to a nearly satisfying conclusion. I think I just wanted a book with a stronger and less subtle feminist message.

However, with each horrifying misogynistic practice in THE GRACE YEAR, our attention is drawn to a similar, sometimes less exaggerated version of it that exists in our reality. Liggett expertly draws metaphors and explicit imagery for the horrors girls face every day–in the real world.

The verdict? In the end, the subtle and the sharp way that Liggett directs attention to the ridiculousness of how misogyny exists and operates in our world does pack the punch I was looking for. With beautiful writing and an intensely thrilling story, readers will be glued to the book until the very end.

This book gave me a lot of feelings, and not all of them were necessarily good.

I'll start with the positives!

I really loved the world building in this story. Our setting is something similar to The Village, with a whole lot of Handmaid's Tale mixed in. The rules of this world are similar to both stories, as well. Don't go into the woods, lest ye be poached. Obey the men. Don't have dreams.

The girls are all rounded up in their sixteenth year to "release" their magic into the wild, otherwise the men become bewitched or something. Only Teirney, our main character, doesn't feel magical. She just wants to survive her grace year, come home, and work in the fields. She doesn't want a husband to wait for her to come home. She doesn't want to bear children. She wants her freedom.

That's all well and good.

But then things get really freakin' murky.

Kiersten, the mean girl (because there's always a mean girl), claims her magic gift is making people do whatever she wants them to do. She claims this on their way to the encampment where they're supposed to spend the next thirteen months.

There's a LOT that happens at the encampment, but without going into major spoiler territory, this part sticks out the most to me as something that doesn't line up properly.

Plus, the poachers. Why are they the way they are? Who are they? What does their near cannibalism even mean? Maybe it's because I so wanted this to be an incredible story about feminism that can carry over to now, but...it fell short.

While there are some super important themes in this story, it fell a bit flat. I give The Grace Year 3 out of 5 red flowers. Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for providing a copy in exchange for review.

The Grace Year is the best of old-school YA dystopia. Kim Liggett serves up suspense and gore alongside sharp ideas on the paradoxes of female power.

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I love it when a book lives up to its comps perfectly.

I first heard The Grace Year pitched as The Handmaid’s Tale meets Lord of the Flies with a dash of The Hunger Games. That’s precisely what I got. Dystopian version of Puritanical New England, kids left to create a society on their own… win-or-die and wilderness survival… tons of gore… it’s exactly what I was promised.

The Grace Year is the best of classic YA dystopia. I gobbled the entire thing down in one evening–it’s been a while since a book lit up the part of my brain that needs to read on to see the character through her current peril. Apart from anything else, this was just a great horror-infused adventure–suspenseful, exciting, and frightening. The dash of romance doesn’t hurt either.

And on top of all that, the book actually had–oh, happy day!–a point.

I’ve had a lot of bad luck in the last year or so with feminist dystopias. I get frustrated with reads like Vox and Grace and Fury that dwell in “oppression porn” without any specific perspective. The ones that work for me (Girls of Paper and Fire, The Power) have something to say besides “sexism = bad.”

And The Grace Year has a lot to say. Most interestingly, the book illustrates a paradox of this oppressive culture. Women are called the “weaker sex” and denied agency, but at the same time, believed to have immense power over men that needs to be controlled. They’re entirely helpless and far too threatening. That’s a fascinating paradox, and Liggett explores it with clever imagery and a sharp eye.

Yes, The Grace Year lacks any semblance of subtlety (the author won’t stop pointing out symbolism!) but I can forgive that. It’s not terrible to come right out with your point in YA. Liggett succeeds in getting a fair amount of nuance across.

Even better, she writes about girls experiencing (and doing!) terrible things in a way that is still empowering.

I’m going to borrow a quote from Emily May (one of my favorite Goodreads reviewers) in her discussion of The Grace Year:

"But what is so odd about The Grace Year is that it’s about women going wild, being jealous, viciously hurting each other, and yet it somehow manages to be a celebration of women and the ties between them. Mothers and daughters. Sisters. Friends. It’s quite incredible how Liggett takes these women to their very worst so that we can eventually appreciate them at their best.”

That sums it up perfectly. By the end, we have a new paradox that builds off the first: Women have unique and profound capacities to wound one another and to heal one another. They can orient themselves against or with one another by the same qualities.

I won’t give spoilers here, but I have to note that the ending was something special. Liggett perfectly tied all the threads together into something moving, unexpected, and smart.

That said, The Grace Year is not a perfect book.

I enjoyed the reading experience immensely, but can’t quite give five stars.

The book lasts an entire year, and that can be a real challenge for pacing. Liggett doesn’t quite pull off the magic trick it would require to make the pacing feel natural and even while still pushing the reader on to important moments. The jumps in time often seemed disjointed, and sometimes the detail was too much or too little.

There are also some real struggles with characterization. Tierney isn’t exactly a groundbreaking YA heroine (“I was a willful child, too curious for my own good, head in the clouds, lacking propriety,” she tells us), but I still had some trouble understanding her choices. She’s also got the same problem as the heroines of Grace and Fury. Tierney seems like she’s been plucked out of 2010s America and dropped, at 16, into this setting. I don’t have any sense of how growing up in this culture shaped her. She feels strongly that her world is ordered completely wrong, but I never saw how she came to that conclusion.

I do have one major reservation.

I have some quibbles with the world building and writing, sure, but my main reservation with The Grace Year is this: Where are the non-white, non-cis people?

Setting up a dystopia based on strict gender roles and sex segregation naturally without even a passing mention of the existence of transgender or nonbinary people… it raises some questions.

I actually mean that question seriously. I’m working on a full post to parse out why people of color and trans and nonbinary people are absent. (I don’t mean that I want to excuse it. Digging into the lack of diversity in this book might be able to tell us a lot about the genre.)

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Content warnings for The Grace Year include sexual assault (discussion and some on-page groping/threatening), death (on-page death of teens, on-page public execution), graphic violence (detailed on-page depictions of bodily violence, some gore and body horror, mutilation, scars/body part loss), misogyny (sex-segregated oppressive community, forced marriage, sex-shaming language, predatory behavior, all challenged), homophobia (homophobic language and violence, threat of punishment for same-sex relationships, public outing), transphobia (scene of grabbing a teen girl’s crotch to “check”). The book contains moderate language, fade-to-black sex scenes among consenting teens, frank discussion of sex, and discussions of prostitution (including forced prostitution). The book contains a first-person scene of childbirth, discussion of infertility (and shaming for same), and many scenes of pregnancy and menstruation.

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Thank you to Wednesday Books for providing an advance review copy of this title. No money changed hands for this review and all opinions are my own.

I can see why people are saying it’s kind of like The Handmaid’s Tale. It also reminded me a bit of that movie The Village. Overall I thought it was pretty good, but I think there could have been more.

I personally wish we had gotten more background on the town itself. This is how it’s been, and that was all that was said. I was just left wondering if it was like this everywhere. There are some hints towards it not being all the same in other places, but I think if we had find out more, it would have helped me answer some of the questions I had while reading. Not just from an information standpoint, but there were just parts of the story that either went too fast or too slow. I found myself not invested in the story during portions of it.

I did, however, like the style of writing and the fact that we do have a strong female lead. I also liked the ending and the last portion of the book. I think Tierney finds her strength and we see a glimpse of the revolt that is happening among some of the smaller characters. I wish that had been seen more within the plot though. The ending is where I finally felt connected and wanted to understand and learn more about the town that was built, and what the future held.

Grace year is a survival horror tale that nails it completely. It is dark, disturbing, and unsettling. It kicks off with just how grim the setting is as we meet Tierney James, our protagonist. We learn how women are forced in to a grace year at 16 to dispel their magic as they survive together and against each other, as well as other dangers lurking around them. We see how women who have gone through the grace year now comprise their roles as good, subservient wives, or they are shipped off to labor jobs, outcast, or even killed.

Tierney is a strong willed main character, who wants to buck the rules, be her own person, and lead her own life. Yet when she is handed a veil before she heads off in to the Grace Year, she now has a target on her. Thus begins a year of violence, backstabbing, survival, and just trying to maintain her own sanity.

I won't discuss the book much further, because I feel like a lot of details, even if small can give away a lot with this book. It is also a book I can describe in terms of just how dark, gritty, and horrific it is, but struggle to explain it to someone wanting me to tell them about it. It's one of those books where I just end up saying, "You just have to read it, you won't be disappointed".

The best way to describe it is, this book is a tale of strong women taking on a patriarchal society that has brutally kept the women in line. Learning to realize the true dangers surrounding them, which is not just the dangers of nature and The Grace Year, but the thoughts ingrained within them from birth, and the society built to keep them in line and benefit off them.

This is a can't miss YA title, that everyone should take note of and read.

The Grace Year is a powerful book and definitely one of my top reads for 2019. It’s about a village, where every year young women are sent into the woods to dispel all of their dangerous magic before they’re married off to the man who chooses them. The story is pitched as The Handmaid’s Tale meets Lord of the Flies

I am usually not one for dystopian books; however, the beautiful, atmospheric writing, and raw emotion pulled me in and had me finish it within 24 hours of starting it. The author doesn’t shy away from the horror and grotesque things that could potentially happen to these girls. She uses it not for shock value, but to convey the powerful message of the strength of women. This story is a rollercoaster of emotions, and I loved the journey that I went on throughout the story. By the end, as a woman I felt a sense of pride. This story is incredible and has relevant messages for women in today’s society. Definitely read this book!

When I read the synopsis, I was immediately hooked. 

It felt like a darker, possible-survival story surrounding female-oppression. It's definitely a world driven novel, and I think the author did a great job in creating an entrapping society that you just want to know the history of. 

I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars. It's a book that surprised me with all the feelings from anger to shock to empowerment. The vibe is darker than I expected which also really drew me in and left me feeling heavy.

A polarizing yet powerful dystopian novel that explores the cruelty and kindness of women, as well as how and why women choose to perpetuate patriarchal oppression. This is a book with an intriguing concept but ultimately lackluster execution, and the abundance of body horror makes it difficult for me to recommend unilaterally in good faith.

Don’t be fooled by the pretty pink cover: this isn’t a beautiful book. Liggett depicts a world of horrifying patriarchal control, where a man who wants a younger and prettier wife has cause to send his current spouse to the gallows; where teenage girls are sent into the wilderness at age sixteen to ‘burn away’ their ‘magic’ and return submissive and dutiful, either to marry (the lucky few) or to labor without reprieve until the day they die. We don’t get much in the way of world-building – an aside here-and-there about ‘Eve’ who was burned alive for her ‘magic’ but nothing in the vein of lengthy exposition on how and why this society came to be. As other reviewers have noted, this adds to the creeping claustrophobia of the setting, as well as suggesting with chilling subtlety how easily patriarchal regimes rise, survive, and thrive.

As much as I enjoyed reading this novel, I’d like to point out several crucial flaws that may detract potential readers. Tierney as a character only became interesting to me towards the end of the novel, and I’ll admit that I found her relationships with Ryker and Michael uninteresting in comparison to the women in her life. I also wonder if the “happy” ending was earned – and if the revelation about the girl with the birthmark was explained well enough for my liking. Like many young adult dystopian novels, this one suffered from pacing issues, and I would’ve liked to have seen more of the inner workings of the grace year camp, as well as more time devoted to the development of relationships. Kiersten’s character felt cartoonish at times and subtle in others, and I never felt that I knew anyone well enough to understand their motivations. It’s likely that this subterfuge was by design, but the murkiness of character and setting compounded by the absence of chapter division (the book is divided into seasonal sections, each roughly 100 pages in length) resulted in an often confusing reading experience.

But those points aside, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel – I’m a fast reader, but even I find it difficult to read over 400 pages in a single day, which I managed with this utterly compelling work. A major word of caution, however: this is a violent book. Graphic descriptions of gore, torture, and body horror abound, and while (gratefully) the horror of sexual violence isn’t sexualized, it wasn’t something I was expecting based on the description – and, rightfully, it was deeply unsettling. I don’t know whether the publisher could feasibly provide trigger warnings in future publications, but at the very least a sentence warning potential readers of the content could be useful (particularly given the pretty pink cover and comparisons to The Hunger Games, which, though violent, doesn’t approach the same level of gore as this novel does.)

In sum: recommended, but use discretion; if you’re turned off by the prospect of a feminist dystopian novel, or if you loathe gratuitous descriptions of violence, I’d suggest sitting this one out. However, if you’re intrigued by female-based horror and the nuances of girlhood gothic, I recommend giving it a go and deciding for yourself if my critiques have merit.

Ahhh when I got the email from NetGalley about the Grace Year being a "Read Now" title for 72 hours, I had to jump on it, and I'm glad I did! Thank you so much to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for giving me the opportunity to read The Grace Year Early!

The Grace Year 4/5 Stars

Summary from Goodreads: No one speaks of the grace year. It’s forbidden.
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.

So when I read the description, I wasn't 100% sure whether or not I wanted to read this book- but then, I saw someone else's review that said it was short and dystopian and I was like yes. The e-arc for the Grace Year is only 226 pages long, so I knew that I could get it done relatively quickly and since I generally enjoy dystopian ya novels, I figured I could get on board with this book. The book started with a lot of promise and while I got a little bored during the year the Grace Year girls were in their actual Grace Year, the general plot of the book was pretty interesting and generally moved fast enough that I stayed interested throughout. Some of the characters were easy for me to get confused (for some reason, I could never remember which one of Tierney's sisters were which), but overall,  the important people were really easy to remember. I think some of the plot twists that were added in throughout were really interesting, but the one near the end when they get back to town was unnecessary and I was not a fan.

Overall though, I enjoyed the Grace Year and I definitely think that it was worth reading. It comes out on October 8th, so make sure to pick it up around then!

Where do I even begin? The Grace Year was emotional, gut-wrenching, and amazing. I feel changed having read it and honestly just feel like I want to read it again.

Thank you to NetGalley for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Grace Year is a fairly fast-paced YA speculative fiction. It's both feminist and not, which provides a great discussion opportunity for any book clubs that choose to pick it up.

We follow Tierney, who's 16 and thus about to head off for her grace year - a year in which girls are banished to the woods for fear that the men in the community will fall victim to their power. The understanding is that they possess magic, and must release it while in the woods so as to return pure and ready for marriage. But, of course, not all the girls return - and what really happens during the grace year is kept a mystery.

I liked The Grace Year, but I didn't love it. The pacing didn't always work for me - sometimes things felt too drawn out, and other times months passed by in a blink (when I think their inclusion would have added to the story). Some elements of the plot felt too convenient, or like they ran contrary to what had previously been developed. The ending was written in a much subtler way than the rest of the book, and because of that several friends missed what I think actually happened. (Initially, I thought it was a purposely ambiguous ending, but upon a reread, I think there's only one conclusion that makes sense based on the details presented.)

While reading, I couldn't help but think of the parts of the world in which menstruating girls are isolated. Liggett mentioned in an interview that she was "blown away by the things that we do to teen girls" and, while I think the Grace Year does leave something to be desired, I appreciate her motivation.

Thank you to Wednesday Books, NetGalley, and Libro.fm for a free e-ARC and ALC of this title.

This book was very entertaining with lots of suspense which kept me engaged and turning pages. If you like survival stories like The Hunger Games and Lord of the Flies, you will most likely enjoy this book. Even though there are some flaws with the plot and an unnecessary romance, the overall theme of females rising above male dominance carries throughout the story. I would have loved more scenes of the girls and how they survived for a whole year.

Our stage is set in 'the county', a Handmaids-Tale kind of scenario. The only role of a woman is to be a wife and bear children, preferably sons of course. Congregations and silent prayer are forbidden, and for their 16th year each female is sent away to 'release their magic' at an encampment. If they are lucky they will return afterward to obey whichever man has laid claim. If not they will be sent to the fields and workhouses.
Not an entirely original premise but thankfully the bulk of this book focuses on the girls during their time spent away from the county. The Grace Year.

As always we follow the ambitious one. The girl who will not conform, who dreams of a better way of life. Tierney wants nothing less than to be a wife and resents the laws of the county.

The Grace Year had all the markings of a 5 star read, right up until the insta love trope landed. It destroyed the defiant independent vibe Tierney had and once I'd noticed it with Ryker, I realised she was being saved at every turn by men; her father, Michael, Hans, Ryker the list goes on.
For all of Tierney's rebellious talk and thoughts of protecting the other girls she hadn't really acted on any of it. She began to seem sanctimonious and I found myself preferring the stereotype victim of Gertrude!

Kiersten is a formidable antagonist. She appears to truly relish leading the cult-like mass hysteria, I found my strongest reaction was to her character. I really, really despised Kiersten in a bizarrely enjoyable way! She was perfectly written.

I'm not going to mention very much about the plot because uncovering it was my favourite part of reading this book.
There are a couple of surprises in store for readers of The Grace Year. I didn't predict them because Liggett blends them perfectly into the sequence.
For me there was no face palm 'I-should-have-known' moments, more of an 'OH! Well yes that does make sense..'
This title was my 100th read of 2019 so I was particularly happy to be misdirected so expertly.

I'm not a fan of a nice gift wrapped ending which is how it felt, but I can overlook it because the premise of The Grace Year is fantastic!

This book has all the cruel, insidious, culty goodness I love, set in the wilderness with supernatural vibes and psychological scares.
Tamp down the cheesy romance sub plot and show me more of the 'outskirts' and I'd be calling it perfect.

As soon as I heard this was a combo of [book:The Handmaid's Tale|38447], [book:Lord of the Flies|7624] and [book:The Hunger Games|2767052], I was in. Those three books do sum up the plot pretty well, and though it's not quite as great as any of those books, that doesn't mean it's not good.

I raced through this book in about 48 hours. It did move from great to so-so a few times, but then would veer back to good and then great again. Along the way I had some issues with parts of it (we have stereotypical mean girls and girls fighting over boys) but I was pleasantly surprised when there were then some explanations and commentary on those issues, so they are not really presented as acceptable norms. It's not perfectly excused, but it helped my discomfort.

I've seen some complaints about the requisite romance in this YA book, but I think it fits here. Tierney is a 16 year old girl who is not only fighting for her life, but possibly even suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. This is not explicitly stated in the book, but there are a enough subtleties in the book throughout that I think it could be argued.

In the end, my favorite thing is that the story and all the problems in the County are not wrapped up tidily. Instead of unrealistically solving all the issues immediately, we see instead that seeds of change have been planted. As we saw with June's Garden, those seeds can end up saving lives.

This is a YA book that can be thoroughly enjoyed by adults (I'm practically an old lady and I loved it). If you like The Handmaid's Tale or Hunger Games, or would like to read a female centered Lord(ess) of the Flies, then I say definitely give this a try. And buy a copy for the teen girl in your life, so she can wonder about her magic, whether it's real, and how she might use it.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for lending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I’ve got to admit, I was skeptical when I first saw this book. I thought it was hard to bring something new to the dystopian, fight for your life, young adult story. But this one completely blew me away!

Although often compared to Hunger Games and Lord of the Flies (feminine version, way scarier!), this book managed to include a lot of survivalist details without letting them weigh down the story. Or distract from the characters and the horrific plight the young women faced.

I was surprised by the many twists in the last 25% of the book. By the time the few grace year girls return to the county, they are all changed in one way or another. And Tierney realizes her family has been standing with her all along, in the only way they know how.

I would have enjoyed a neat and happy ending. But that would have made the story more like a fairy tale. And there were hard truths for Tierney to still face. As she realizes all the sacrifices that have been made for her, she finally appreciates her community and sisterhood of women. This realism made The Grace Year all that more powerful! I highly recommend this book!

Many thanks to NetGalley and publishers for the advanced reader’s copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

In the vein of The Handmaid's Tale, The Grace Year is a feminism, dystopian thriller that I could not put down! A very interesting concept, but I felt like the execution of the plot fell just a little bit short.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for this ARC!

With the renewed interest in books such as The Handmaid's Tale, The Grace Year is an interesting mix of the Margaret Atwood classic and William Golding's Lord of the Flies. This book started out strong, with a setting that was immediately interesting, strong characters, and a story that kept me guessing. But the ending of this book didn't quite deliver.

What I Liked:
Setting:

I found the society that the book was set in to be intriguing and scary. Men are so afraid of women having any power, they control every aspect of their lives. They are constantly told they are full of evil magic, and are temptresses out to do harm to men. There are rigid rules to follow, public punishments, and arranged marriages. And there is a rage that is only between women (after they've gone through the Grace year), that we will understand as the story progresses.

Characters:

Tierney has never wanted to be married and has worked hard to make herself as unappealing to men as possible. She has planned out her life to be placed as a field worker, rather than a wife. But she soon learns that she, like all women in the book, cannot control her own destiny.

Although I thought Tierney was entirely too self-aware, I did like how she tried to take action so all the Grace Year girls would be better off. She was a leader.

There were an assortment of other girls who were equally interesting, especially Gertie and Kiersten. Gertie, is the one almost always a target of bullying. She is meek, and shy, and doesn't protest when she is relentlessly taunted by her former best friend, Kiersten. This book show an unfortunate side of human nature. Bullies will rise, if not challenged. Kiersten is the ultimate queen bee. She has a charismatic personality that the other girls are drawn to. But she uses her popularity to consolidate power, not to be a force of good. Isn't it inevitable that Kiersten and Tierney will be mortal enemies?

Plot:

I loved the story. What happens when teen girls are left isolated and must survive on their own? Do the girls really possess magic or are they in an elaborate psychological experiment? These were really fascinating to see played out in the story.

What I was Mixed About:
Narrative:

Based on the society that Tierney lived in, I just don't think she would have had the self-awareness to be bothered by the oppression of the female characters. As a reader in 2019, of course I was horrified by how the women were treated. But I think Tierney would never had been such a trailblazer. Or at least there would have been many other girls who had the same anger as she.

This all boils down to the old saying, "show, not tell" that writers are given. It is much more effective to show the oppression, and how it affects the characters, than it is to have Tierney give a running commentary about how wrong this all is.

Action Sequences:

There are several action sequences where Tierney is being chased by people. This was exciting, but also confusing. It was difficult to follow what was happening, as some reality was mixed with hallucinations (at least that is what seemed to be going on?). I was even confused as to if certain people died or not. I wish these scenes would have been more straight forward.


What I didn't Like:

Ending:

The ending left me very confused as to what actually happened. As the girls are finally taken back to the village, there is a revelation that I didn't see coming (it would have helped if this had been more explicitly hinted at earlier in the book). This revelation changes the trajectory of the main character and puts into doubt any actual changes that might happen due to Tierney's actions. What was it all for?

Remember when I complained that the author should show, not tell what is going on? Well, she apparently got the message at the very end. The ending was so ambiguous, I really didn't understand what became of Tierney. And that is a frustrating way to end a book.

"I wonder what would happen if we all said what we really felt...just for one night. They couldn't banish us all. If we stood together, they'd have to listen. But with rumors swirling about a usurper among us, no one is willing to take that risk. Not even me.

I read this book in one day, in pretty much one sitting. I have read so many YA dystopia novels about 5-6 years ago when they were all the rage that I am not even a fan of dystopia anymore so I am not sure what compelled me to request this book to begin with. But I am glad I did. Usually I don't agree with the comparisons they make in the book blurbs but I think calling this a mix of "Lord of the Flies" and "Handmaid's Tale" is pretty spot on. Especially the first one. This might be the closest to an all-girls version of "Lord of the Flies" I've ever read.

"The things we do to girls. Whether we put them on pedestals only to tear them down, or use them for parts and holes, we're all complicit in this. But everything touches everything else, and I have to believe that some good will come out of all this destruction."

In the end though, this book is a feminist book. It is about the power of women. It is about how the world, and the men in this book, try to break the women. Try to pit them against each other at all costs. It's about how both love and betrayal can come from unexpected sources.

"There's a place inside us where they can't reach us, they can't see. What burns in you burns in all of us."

It's about survival. About not losing hope. Not letting yourself be broken. It's a powerful book that made me feel angry, dejected, hopeful and proud all at once. I am glad I read it and I am glad it's out there.

Thank you to netgalley and St. Martin's Press for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.