Thanks so much to Netgalley for giving me a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

"Your eyes are wide open, but you see nothing." 4.5 stars!

This was sooooo good! I couldn't put it down. Garner County is very reminiscent of Salem or some other sort of Puritan village. Women have no rights and are at the mercy of the men in the village except during the Grace Year.

The ending was tied up a little too neatly but I would love to have a sequel/companion book.

I ended up loving this look, but it took me a LONG time to settle in. There's little to no background on why things are the way they are in this world and whether or not it's a byproduct of our current world or some other dimension entirely, not to mention we don't know anything about the world outside of Garner County. Maybe that's not totally necessary for every reader, but I appreciate having more context than we were given here. As a result, I spent the first quarter of the book simply trying to orient myself and trying to figure out what was happening and WHY.

But once I felt like I had my feet underneath me, I got drawn in and couldn't stop reading. Readers aren't going to like these characters - they're super flawed and I felt myself thinking 'OH COME ON DON'T BE DUMB' a lot. But the plotting and the story here is superb. I hope we get more of this story in a series, because I'd definitely like to know what happens in Garner County after the events in THE GRACE YEAR.

Book Description
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 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.

My Thoughts
Depending on where you are in the world, your sixteenth year might be just another birthday or a time of great celebration( Sweet Sixteen). But for Tierney( the main character)and all the other girls from Garner County, this will be no presents, parties, and celebration type year. The men who control and own the women in this society believe that the girls contain magic, which will disappear during their Grace Year when they can then return home to take up their assigned roles as wives, workers, or prostitutes. Do the girls know what this entails? Not really, since no one is allowed to talk about the year of their banishment, but they do know that not all the past girls who left return, and poachers who will kill a girl for her magic essence are a very real threat.
Tierney's greatest fear thus far has been keeping the contempt she feels for the rules off her face and out of her eyes. She knows that she may not make it back, but doesn't realize that the elements, the meager supplies, and the poachers may not be the biggest threat, it might be each other. The girls are unprepared for the harshness of their surroundings and yet it is the jealousy and straight-out meanness towards each other that might ultimately get Tierney killed. The year is brutal and while Tierney does her best to use the skills her father has taught her, her efforts may not be enough to make the Grace Year girls allies.
Without venturing into spoiler territory, I will say that there is quite a bit of suspense and I was quickly flipping pages to find out how The Grace Year would end. The chapters are rather long, divided by seasons and their return home. For the most part, I thought Tierney made good, sound decisions, but the story does veer off course(to me) with the introduction of a love interest. Very little is revealed about how this patriarchal society came to be and whether or not the whole world is run the same or just this one small part. As for the ending, while things on the surface remain the same, there was hope for the future.
I received a DRC from St. Martin's Press through NetGalley.

This is more than just a dystopian novel. Some have called this the book of the year, with its emphasis on female relationships.

This fell a little flat for me as my hopes were high with the comparison to others books. Good story but just not what I was expecting it to be.

The Grace Year reminded me of The Handmaid's Tale combined with the Hunger Games. The first 3/4 of the book really worked for me and I was invested in Tierney's journey and her relationship with the other "grace year" girls. Unfortunately the love story just did not do it for me. It took away from the female empowerment the beginning of the novel created and fell flat to me. I understand that it was dangerous and rebellious for Tierney to fall in love and choose her own partner, but it did not fit in the rest of the story for me.I would have loved to explore more of the history of the society and continue to focus on the relationships between Kiersten, Tierney and especially Tierney's mom with that final reveal!

3.5 rounded up to 4 here.

Thank you to #netgalley and the publishers for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review,

I think that the first thing I have to say is that I read this book in a span of 24 hours. One, I simply couldn’t put it down, and two because of the way this book is written, it really feels like it should be a binge read.

Going into this book, I knew it was going to make me mad. It takes place in a world where women are completely controlled by the men in their lives and apparently when they reach their 16th year, they are forced out into the wilderness so they can be cured of a magic that they have. Apparently their magic lures men away from their wives and family and honestly just reading that made me so mad. Within the first chapter I was hoping our main character would come into her magic and burn everything to the ground.

This book did not go in the way that I thought it would. It actually took me completely by surprise. We follow the story through Tierneys eyes and I really loved her. She was so rebellious and wanted so much to help the other girls survive. One thing was that everything happened so quickly. This story takes place over the span of a year, but honestly it doesn’t feel like that. I honestly really joined this book and the characters. I just wish there was more. I was left with so many questions about the world and the hows and whys.

A mash up of Hunger Games, Lord of the Flies and Handmaid's Tale. In this case it works. Tierney is getting ready to go on her Grace year in which all sixteen year old girls must do following a veil ceremony. What happens is a dangerous journey and year long stay at a compund where young women will turn against one another or unite. There are poachers outside of the compound and as well as turmoil wthin. A love story and an adventure story with some weighty looks at the female role in society.

This was billed to me as The Handmaid's Tale mixed with Lord of the Flies, which sounded promising. It didn't live up to that pairing for me in the end. The writing has some interesting stylistic choices with ellipses abounding and over-the-top language, and I rolled my eyes more than once. I tried to give this some slack because our heroine is 16, so it's good that she feels 16 in a very protected and claustrophobic society, but ultimately, I just couldn't get beyond the character flipping from her.

<b>This just in: a good concept alone does not make a good book. Execution matters, and in this regard, <i>The Grace Year</i> fell flat.</b> When I first heard about this book, pitched as <i>Handmaid's Tale</i> meets <i>Lord of the Flies</i>, I was pretty damn excited. And when I got approved for it on NetGalley, I was absolutely thrilled. The start of the book had me enthralled. And then...it all fell apart.

The premise of this book is pretty simple. In some messed-up society, the patriarchy is oppressive. Wives are chosen during a formal ceremony in which they have no say, all punishments are physical and public, and the body parts of dead girls are sold secretly for their alleged magical/medicinal properties. Women are told that they have dangerous magic that they develop in their teens, and that they need to get rid of that magic before they can marry their husbands. Thus, every year, after some of them are chosen by their future husbands, all the sixteen-year-old girls are taken to a remote island camp where they are left to their own devices for a full year, known as their Grace Year, allegedly to burn through all their "magic" so they can return "purified." When Tierney leaves with her Grace Year's cohort, she realizes what savagery the island brings out in the girls, and she begins to seriously question everything about her society's priorities and beliefs.

At first glance, that's such a good concept, right? The first quarter of this book fell right into that storyline, and it was stellar. There were deaths. There was blood and backstabbing. There were high stakes and divisions quickly drawn between cliques of girls. It was gritty and beautiful in its brutality.

And at the start, I loved the protagonist. Tierney is a rebellious girl with exactly zero desire to get married. While other 30-ish girls in her year vie for the hands of just twelve eligible bachelors, she spends her time with her best friend Michael--who she knows will be engaged to the beautiful and popular Kiersten because of how powerful his family is--running about, climbing trees, and generally refusing to be a nice young lady. When she and the girls arrive on the island for their Grace Year, as the others devolve into chaos and drama, she throws her survival skills into action, building rain barrels and calculating ways to ration food. She reminded me a bit of Katniss from <i>The Hunger Games</i>, only instead of trying to feed her family, she is trying to maintain a sense of independence and self in a community that wants her to become a submissive nobody. <b>She was the sort of kickass girl I wanted to root for</b>, whip-smart and acting from logic, not emotions. A bit of an outsider, sometimes a loner, but not without her charm, and certainly full of kindness and sympathy when needed.

But, after a little time on the island, things change. Without spoiling too much, suffice to say a new character shows up, and with the arrival of this character, the plot swiftly falls apart. The ordinarily fierce Tierney suddenly ends up pulling a significant insta-love move on someone she thoroughly hated until that person's motives proved kind. <b>I can't stand insta-love as it is, but it is a thousand times worse when it comes from a character who always seemed so strong and reasonable</b>, and when that character has another, far more compatible love interest as well. And as a whole, the story becomes less about female empowerment and more about choosing your breed of domesticity, if that makes sense. It rubbed me the wrong way.

I will say, the book does a nice job of resolving the sort-of love triangle, without feeling too much like a cop-out. YA novels so frequently have unhealthy or disappointing depictions of love, but <b>by the end, <i>The Grace Year</i> does manage to take a more nuanced feminist stance on all forms of love that is good for all parties involved.</b>

One of my biggest annoyances was that, <b>although the society depicted was fascinating, it didn't feel fully realized.</b> There was never really an explanation given for how things got to be the way they were. Because the town was very low-tech--no cars or TVs or even electricity that I can recall--it was hard to tell whether this was meant to be a dystopia, an isolated present-day village, something in the past, or something in a different world altogether. There is only one brief part that discusses the world beyond their society, and it is in minimal detail, so you can't even tell what relationship they have with the outside world. Did they retreat from society? Do others respect them? Avoid them? Do the same thing as them? There was so much potential to build this world up, flesh it out, but instead the story let itself exist in a vacuum, which somewhat deadened the punch it could have packed.

A brief formatting note: for those of you who like your reading to be broken nicely into chapters, this one will be challenging. The book is divided into just five parts, each one shorter than the one before: one for each season of the Grace Year, and one for what happens when the girls return home at the year's conclusion. While there are some spaces for whenever the story shifts in time or topic, <b>there are not formal chapter designations beyond the aforementioned five</b>. I guess it makes this a good binge read? But it also makes it hard to find a good stopping point when needed.

Speaking of those seasons, I have to say, the pacing in the book was weird. There were parts that felt way too long (including a lot with that aforementioned character who derails the plot), and there were others that I desperately wanted to see more of (like the politics of the girls in the camp, especially near the end of the year). Sometimes it felt very character-driven, and I loved the dynamics between all the girls, especially the clashes between Tierney and Kiersten, and the female friendships with side characters like Gertie. Others, it felt like the author realized the story wasn't going anywhere, so she suddenly threw in a bunch of twists and betrayals and complications. Both pieces were good on their own, but they didn't integrate very well with each other.

Finally, again not wanting to give much away: <b>the ending felt too easy.</b> Suddenly, you get to the last section and everything ties up with a neat little bow. All the mysteries are solved. People start to do some specific good things that you've spent the whole book waiting for them to do. It isn't a happily-ever-after, but after the brutality of the early chapters, the end is a little too simple and a little too...smooth. It wasn't bad. It was just weird.

Final random notes:
- There was a hint of <b>casual LGBTQ+ rep from a side character</b>, which made me happy and definitely helped the book feel a bit more realistic.
- I got a bit annoyed...at times...just how frequently Tierney's thoughts...had ellipses. Sometimes...I...understood why it was done stylistically...but others...it was not as good. And then the rambling would be interspersed with pity, profound statements that I'm sure will be all over every review of this book. Some were pretty good, like this one:
<i>"That's the problem with letting the light in--after it's been taken away from you, it feels even darker than it was before."</i>

Others, like this, just made me wince:
<i>"They can call it magic. I can call it madness. But one thing is certain. There is no grace here."</i>

Basically, this whole novel is the literary equivalent of someone taking a great cake recipe, then throwing in a bunch of other ingredients, swapping almond flour for the real stuff, throwing raisins in where they don't belong, and not mixing it evenly. I try it because it sounds good, but it isn't as good as I had hoped, and I leave with a bad taste in my mouth. I have no idea where that metaphor came from, but it feels right.

<i>Thank you to St. Martin's for providing me with an eARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.</i>

THE GRACE YEAR (comes out October 8) is an ambitious YA thriller about a strange world which punishes girls when they turn 16 by sending to a hunger games-like year long survival game in the woods. There are tons of moving elements in the story - feminism, magic, sex, ethics, coming of age. It’s a lot to all fit in, but it works as a whole by the end. The plot moves, except for some slow parts when the main character is alone, and can often be shocking and surprising.

The movie, which has already been optioned and is in development, is gonna be great and I can’t wait to see how they pull it off. I can see with some trimming down it will be a really good script. A solid four stars from me!

Rare is the book that actually merits a comparison to THE HANDMAID’S TALE.

** Trigger warning for misogyny, homophobia, violence – including rape – and suicide. **

“In the county, everything they take away from us is a tiny death. But not here . . .” She spreads her arms out, taking in a deep breath. “The grace year is ours. This is the one place we can be free. There’s no more tempering our feelings, no more swallowing our pride. Here we can be whatever we want. And if we let it all out,” she says, her eyes welling up, her features softening, “we won’t have to feel those things anymore. We won’t have to feel at all.”

###

“In the county, there’s nothing more dangerous than a woman who speaks her mind. That’s what happened to Eve, you know, why we were cast out from heaven. We’re dangerous creatures. Full of devil charms. If given the opportunity, we will use our magic to lure men to sin, to evil, to destruction.” My eyes are getting heavy, too heavy to roll in a dramatic fashion. “That’s why they send us here.”

“To rid yourself of your magic,” he says.

“No,” I whisper as I drift off to sleep. “To break us.”

###

I’ve started and stopped, cut and pasted this review so many times over the last few weeks that I’ve lost count. The truth is that THE GRACE YEAR left me speechless and, as with all of my favorite books, I’m afraid that nothing I might write will do it justice. This is the kind of book that merits a twenty-page thesis, not a 500-word review. (Though, let’s be honest, precious few of my reviews clock in at less than 1,000 words.)

You can gather the basics from the synopsis. Our protagonist, sixteen-year-old Tierney James, lives in a culture that hates and fears women. It’s believed that young women possess a powerful, dark magic; paradoxically, they’re also considered men’s inferiors. For the good of society, young women are banished from Garner County for the entirety of their sixteenth year.

The goal during the “Grace Year” is twofold: to purge the magic from their bodies so that they can return home pure and ready to be married – and to return home, period. Their wild and wicked magic; the harsh wilderness; and the poachers who aim to kill them and sell their bewitched body parts on the black market: all stand between the girls and survival.

THE GRACE YEAR follows Tierney and her cohorts as they claw, fight, manipulate, and straight up slay their way through 365 days of exile. Along the way, Tierney calls on her specialized knowledge – her dad is a doctor who always wanted a son, and thus “spoiled” his middle daughter by teaching her useful life skills – to try and change the system from the inside. She dreams of a young woman who carries within her the spark of revolution. She can only hope that her visions are more prophecy, less the random firing of neurons.

The story is told in four main parts, each corresponding to one season in Tierney’s Grace Year: autumn, winter, spring, and summer. There aren’t chapters to divvy things up further (at least there wasn’t in the ARC), which makes each section feel L-O-N-G (in a good way!). Whereas some reviewers complained about this format, I loved it: it gives the readers a sense of the slow passage of time as the Grace Year girls experience it, the weight of days differentiated from one another only by violence and death.

Usually I scoff when books are blurbed as “THE HANDMAID’S TALE meets XYZ,” but I think the comparison is more than warranted here: THE GRACE YEAR is THE HANDMAID’S TALE meets LORD OF THE FLIES, with a dash of THE HUNGER GAMES meets BRIDEZILLAS for extra-crunchy complexity. There’s so much to unpack and dissect here.

In THE GRACE YEAR, Kim Liggett has created a semi-fictional world that could exist at (nearly) any time or place in history. The lack of modern technology – there are references to lithographs and gas lamps, and a distinct absence of electronics – hints at the past. Perhaps Garner County is an isolated community in 1800s America? Yet, without a detailed backstory of how Tierney’s community came to be, she and her ilk could just as easily live in some future dystopia, a society rebuilt from the ashes of a pandemic or world war. Or they could inhabit another ‘verse altogether. I love that the setting is open to interpretation, because it prevents us from dismissing Garner County as something from our past: a result of primitive and outdated beliefs that we have since moved beyond.

News flash: misogyny and homophobia (and racism, classism, ableism, etc.) are still alive and well. Just read the darn news, mkay.

Again just from the synopsis, it’s glaringly obvious that Tierney’s is a strictly religious and patriarchal society marked by rigid gender roles…but this summary hardly does it justice. Think: the fictional Gilead in THE HANDMAID’S TALE. Or WOMEN TALKING, inspired by the very real mass rapes that took place in Manitoba County, a Bolivian Mennonite settlement.

In Garner County, women face myriad restrictions, including but not limited to the following:

– Women are branded with their father’s sigil at birth. They are quite literally owned by their fathers, until the time they are bartered and traded to would-be husbands. Needless to say, they have no say in who they marry.

– Young women who go unclaimed have three options open to them: they can become maids, field laborers, or prostitutes in the outskirts.

– Married women are required to perform their “wifely duties”: “Legs spread, arms flat, eyes to God.” In other words, wives are raped on the regular.

– Though it’s not stated outright, it’s safe to assume that birth control and contraception are outlawed, at least for married women. (Married) women are not allowed to determine how many children they bear, if any.

– It’s considered blasphemous to pray for a baby girl (because we’re worthless, see?).
– Women are only schooled until the age of ten.

– “All the women in Garner County have to wear their hair the same way, pulled back from the face, plaited down the back. In doing so, the men believe, the women won’t be able to hide anything from them—a snide expression, a wandering eye, or a flash of magic. White ribbons for the young girls, red for the grace year girls, and black for the wives. Innocence. Blood. Death.”

– “We’re forbidden from cutting our own hair, but if a husband sees fit, he can punish his wife by cutting off her braid.”

– “We’re not allowed to pray in silence, for fear that we’ll use it to hide our magic.”

– “The women of the county aren’t allowed to hum—the men think it’s a way we can hide magic spells.”

– Adult women cannot wear hoods or other protection against the elements: “After their grace year, their faces needed to be free and clear to make sure they weren’t hiding their magic. The wives scarcely went outdoors during those months.”

– “In the county, bathing with flowers is a sin, a perversion, punishable by whip.”

– “The women aren’t allowed to own pets in the county. We are the pets.”

– “The women aren’t allowed to congregate outside of sanctioned holidays.”

– If a girl does not return from the Grace year – either alive or in bottles – her female family members will be punished by banishment.

Some of these rules are universal to what you’d expect to see in a religious patriarchy: anything to keep women voiceless, segregated, and compliant. In a word, powerless. Others feel like loving throwbacks to THE HANDMAID’S TALE: for example, the scene where Tierney defiantly bathes with a flower brings to mind Offred, secreting away a pat of butter to moisturize her dry and purely functional (to Gilead) body.

One detail that jumps out at me is how the girls and women are pitted against each other, so that they exist in a perpetual state of competition rather than cooperation. Similar to what you’d see in FLDS communities, there’s a sizable gender imbalance in Garner County; created not by casting young men out, as is the polygamous Mormon way, but by drafting lower-class men as Guards, denying them wives, and then castrating them to prevent unauthorized pregnancies. (This is one obvious deviation from THE HANDMAID’S TALE, where lower-class men like Nick are at least allowed the hope that they may one day merit a Wife.)

Thus, there are more eligible wives than husbands – and as the position of wife is the “best” a young woman of Garner County can hope for (the gilded cage), women are pitted against each other. As if this isn’t offensive enough, the veil ceremony takes place immediately before the potential brides leave for their Grace Year. Picture it: you’re a scared sixteen-year-old girl who was just sentenced to a life of hard field labor; the only thing standing between an early, sun-baked death and a relatively cushy life as a wife and mother is a scrap of fabric. You’re alone and unsupervised, for the first time in your life; your body coursing with magic. What now?

Garner County has effectively incentivized murder – hence THE HUNGER GAMES meets BRIDEZILLAS. Not that state-sanctioned murder should come as a surprise: the death penalty is alive and well. See also: the poachers. In truth, not all of the Grace Year girls are meant to return home: not when they are sent into the wilderness with inadequate housing and provisions, and certainly not when they state sanctions poaching. Women are nothing if not expendable.

Magic is also a common theme but, as Tierney so astutely observes, men only seem to discover evidence of magic when it is convenient for them: “Like when Mrs. Pinter’s husband died, Mr. Coffey suddenly accused his wife of twenty-five years of secretly harboring her magic and levitating in her sleep. Mrs. Coffey was as meek and mild as they come—hardly the levitating sort—but she was cast out. No questions asked. And surprise, surprise, Mr. Coffey married Mrs. Pinter the following day.”

Women are so thoroughly indoctrinated that they question themselves whenever they have an impertinent thought or experience a flash of anger: “And I wonder if this is the magic taking over. Is this how it starts—the slip of the tongue? A loss of respect? Is this how I become a monster the men whisper of? I turn and run up the stairs before I do something I regret.”

Spoiler alert: magic isn’t real. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that magic, as it’s defined in Garner County, is not mysterious or supernatural in nature. Rather, magic is code for women’s anger. Magic is when a women speaks her mind and demands equal treatment. Magic is women working together to overthrow the patriarchy and create a new, more equitable society in which they are valued and respected. Magic is a tiny red flower. Magic is revolution.

(Here, I’m reminded of another book: RAGE BECOMES HER: THE POWER OF WOMEN’S ANGER by Soraya Chemaly:

“Ask yourself, why would a society deny girls and women, from cradle to grave, the right to feel, express, and leverage anger and be respected when we do? Anger has a bad rap, but it is actually one of the most hopeful and forward thinking of all of our emotions. It begets transformation, manifesting our passion and keeping us invested in the world. It is a rational and emotional response to trespass, violation, and moral disorder. It bridges the divide between what ‘is’ and what ‘ought’ to be, between a difficult past and an improved possibility. Anger warns us viscerally of violation, threat, and insult. By effectively severing anger from ‘good womanhood,’ we choose to sever girls and women from the emotion that best protects us against danger and injustice.”)
It’s no wonder the men fear it.

Of course, not everyone is hip to the true nature of women’s magic, and it’s enthralling to see how this plays out in the little community formed by the Grace Year girls. I love how Liggett devises a very reasonable, if not mundane, explanation for the manifestation of the girls’ magical powers. And the power dynamics that arise out of this are pretty shrewd and insightful, with plenty of real-world consequences. This is how cult leaders are made. Or 45th presidents.

There’s so much more I want to rave about: The way that Liggett uses Hans to eviscerate the Nice Guy ™ trope. The kinship between women and animals, and the vegan feminist ethic that might arise from recognizing and honoring our similarities. The sheer, raw power (might I say “magic”?) of sisterhood. The seed of revolution that blossoms here.

THE GRACE YEAR may not take place in 2019 America, yet its lessons are painfully relevant today.

My only complaint – and it is not a minor one – is the complete absence of race from the narrative. Only a few of the girls are described in great physical detail; those that are all appear to be white. Do no women of color live in Garner County? If not, why not? Perhaps darker skinned women do exist, but simply are not valued as Wives in this white nationalist patriarchy. If this is the case, we’d expect to find them laboring in the fields, serving the white nuclear families, and bearing the brunt of toxic masculinity as sex workers in the outskirts. As with THE HANDMAID’S TALE, this is an egregiously weak spot in an otherwise powerful and engaging story.

Handmaid's Tale meets Lord of the Flies
I won't give anything away, but I feel like this book has not gotten the hype it deserves. Tierney has been raised in the county, where men rule and women are seen breeding mares. When the girls turn 16, they are sent away for a year known as the Grace Year. It is believed they receive their magic during this time and must be sent away to expel it before the men become weakened by it. No one is allowed to speak of what happens during the Grace Year. I cannot express how much I loved Tierney as the main character. A lot of times, you get these strong female characters that are always sure of their path and beliefs. Tierney is not that character. She is very real and relatable. She has moments when she is weak or questions if she is in the right. I highly recommend this book because girls rule and boys drool.

I was given an ARC for an honest review (thank you!)

"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."

A mash-up of The Handmaid’s Tale, The Hunger Games, and Lord of the Flies? all the best novels rolled into one action packed heck of a read! Cancel all of your plans this book cant be put down. Your gonna finish this book in one sitting.

At times, I found the violence in the book to be really disturbing, and after a while, the cruelty of the girls' was very hard to read about. The violence may be a trigger for some, this book really should be a warning at the beginning of this book, because at times it's extremely graphic in nature. Even during all the violence I could not really put this book down I had to keep reading straight through to the end!

OH MY. I haven't read a book in quite some time that drew me in like The Grace Year. The concept of this unspoken time in a girls life was nothing like I could have imagined. I felt myself wanting more with each turn of the page. BUT that is where I decided to take off one star. I was wanting so much more. It felt like a few months might pass in just a single paragraph. Maybe I'm being selfish wishing this went on to a four book series some how (I know that is wanting too much) but Kim Liggett brought me to a place and made me feel all the same emotions as these girls.

Sixteen-year-old Tierney James isn't looking forward to her grace year. She has never been interested in it, never wanted it, but now she has to face the music - harsh conditions, poachers and all that come with grace year, including admonishing your own kind.

They're there to release their magic, that's believed to be bestowed upon them when they turn 16, into the wild so that they can return pure and ready for marriage. Sounds absurd? These girls don't think so.

It's a 'game' of survival of the fittest. Who will survive? The brainiest? The brawniest? The most cruel?

It got off to a strong start, caught my attention, held it, with me going, wow what a page-turner! Tierney was growing on me and Gertie's enigmatic character was piquing my interest.

And I was dying to find out what was the grace year all about and why was it a taboo to talk about it, and how these girls, Tierney especially, were going to survive this much-feared-of occasion. The build-up and suspense were really good...until...

... the typical hero-saves-the-damsel-in-distress scene came into the picture (not once but twice!!) and, of course, they fell in love.

I was so sure I was going to let my daughter read this book when she's old enough, but changed my mind when the above happened. Whhhhhhyyyyy.... Ohhhh Whhhhhhyyyyy! Tierney didn't need saving. Even if she did, why not another female? And why the portrayal of damsel-in-distress?

This was such a great opportunity to shed women in a more positive light and to let the younger readers know how much stronger women can be when we stand together, than to always put the limelight on catfights, jealousy, and bullying.

And what happened to Tierney wanting to live her life her way? She had so much conviction in wanting to do so in the beginning then it just died off at the end?

There was some female empowerment shown but wasn't enough. I felt it would've been a much better read if there was more of it, like a change in Kiersten, a realization in the group, and them coming together with the rest of the ones in the outskirts. It would definitely be a more inspiring read for the young girls.

This is what I got from the book: yes, the world is going to be a terrifying place if we let our species get out of hand, but worry not, a hero will come save the day.

I know the target audience is going to devour this book, but as a mother, I didn't like the message it conveyed to the younger generation. But alas, I'm not the target audience. So. That's that.

Thank you Netgalley and St Martin's Press for a free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Sweet sixteen. Most teens anticipate turning sixteen. Not in this story, the sixteenth year is called the Grace Year. Townsfolk believe woman possess magic and the only way to rid the young ladies of this power, the sexual powers over men, is to send them away for an entire year to fend for themselves. Tierney James, a tomboy, is the main character in this story. Her father always wanted a son. Blessed with all girls, he treats Tierney more like the son he never had. In secret her father teach her to fish,navigate by the stars and use tools etc. All valuable skills for her upcoming Grace Year.

For re-entry to the town the following year, as a family member, a girl must receive a veil, from a man at the Veiling Ceremony. If a girl goes veilless at the ceremony, the rest of the remaining girls in the family will not be eligible for marriage either. Tierney doesn't believe she will woo a young man into giving her a veil, in fact she plans her life as if she will work in the fields. Convinced this would be a better life, then serving a man. At the ceremony something completely unexpected happens, and it creates more enemies, for poor Tierney, than friends. As all the girls venture off on their own to survive the wilderness for an entire year in an encampment, the real story begins. This book reminds me of an all female version of Lord of the Flies. Its a fast past novel, capable of capturing readers attention fast and keeping them turning pages. The only element the book lacked was better story building in the beginning. I think this would have been a better novel if it had been a three book series instead of a single book. The author could have taken more time to develop the story before the year the girls leave.

Such a good book! I haven’t read anything like it for a while, and I will definitely be on the lookout for more books by this author.

“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.

The story, underlying themes and, the all too real parallels to present day are haunting me long after finishing this novel. The Grace Year is immersive, gruesome, beautiful, terrifying, and hopeful. The narrative is strongly feminist. It is a book that I wish was around during my teenage years, and will surely stand the test of time. This book easily transcends the intended YA audience and I daresay, all women will relate to this tale on a number of levels. I recommend going in to this fairly blind as the full synopsis does giveaway pieces of the story.

This was a strange read for me. I had a hard time getting into the story. I felt like I was missing the background info and I had no interest in the characters. The plot has so much potential but lacked in execution and didn’t command the feelings I had when reading other similar plots (handmaiden’s take for example).

Overall interesting, entertaining and thought provoking but fell a bit flat to me.