Like a more conservative (in morals and lack of modernity) YA version of The Power (Naomi Alderman) with the fervor and heart-racing elements of Hunger Games, this is the most Handmaid’s Tale-esque replica yet, full of danger and intrigue I always want but never know if I will get.

16-year-old Tierney is determined to make it through her grace year to the life she desires working the fields, the most free she can be in the constricting ways of the county. Though her father taught her the skills she will need to survive the woods, she will also need to ward off the enemies she’s made in the other grace year girls. Her longtime friend Michael has rescinded his promise to betroth another girl and offered marriage, a way out of the labor force and into a respectable life of honor, to Tierney instead. Tierney feels this is a betrayal because to be a wife isn’t anywhere on her list of goals and still, jealousy runs deep in the girl who expected Michael’s proposal.

The veiling ceremony, where the 13 available suitors pick their brides-to-be out of the lot of 33, is quickly followed by the girls’ departure deep into the woods and the encampment there, equally guarded by men of the county and the poachers hiding in the shadows hoping for a wayward girl and an easy kill. During their year the girls are meant to embrace and dispel the evil magic that lives inside all young women so that they may return to the county whole and clean and ready to accept the rest of their lives serving God and their people. Tierney though, sticks to her beliefs and remains at odds with the popular leader and jilted Kiersten who is quick to claim her magic and turn the pack of girls against anyone who denies their place, often threatening punishment of dismemberment or banishment behind the gate into poacher territory.

A few YA tropes run rampant but make the story more of a pageturner. Couldn’t put this down until I got to see who did and did not make it through the grace year and if female rage could bring unity or change to the girls and the county.

This was such a unique read and I loved every minute. It is a Hunger Games with a dark, twisted Handmaid’s Tale vibe (but not that disturbing). It is not too dark and there is hope and love amongst all of the darkness. This is a story of a dystopian society that banishes it’s girls for one year as they become teenagers, when they are becoming young women to rid themselves of their “magic” aka sexuality. The only thing that drove me insane was the lack of chapters and the jumping of time without any marker. It was clear within the first few sentences that time had passed but it always made me flip back to make sure I didn’t miss anything. It’s unnecessary. Just provide chapters. Otherwise, fantastic, quick read! It even has a tiny romanctic aspect, but it is certainly not a romance novel.

Remember when you requested and read a book from NetGalley but forgot to review the story…

Yeah, I don’t know how that happened. But I am here to tell you the buzz going around The Grace Year is real! This is one of the more original stories that I have had the pleasure of reading in a long time. Despite being YA this story packs a punch. It is going to resonate with all types of readers. Overall, I greatly enjoyed this novel, there were a few short comings that could have pushed it to the 5 star rating. But lets walk before we run, shall we?

In Garner County, girls who have made it to the 16th year of life are offered up to be married. The young women attend a ceremony where an eligible man basically pees on the female they are claiming. After being claimed or otherwise, the girls are sent away for their grace year. You see in this world they believe that women possess magic. The only way to rid them of this evil is to send them away in the middle of the woods to face the unthinkable.

So I am just going to say it…..Kim Liggett is fucking wild in the best sort of way. This author has some kind of voodoo imagination working for her. This story is gritty, bold and just completely out there. This might be confusing, but this is an enormous amount of praise I am offering Liggett.

There were two mains aspects that led to the 4 stars. The first is Liggett created this camp, full of wild, tormented teenage girls and it is obsene. But for some reason, the story takes our lead character away from this place temporarily. Personally, I would have loved her sticking with this setting and playing it out. Instead we are taken on a detour route that leads us back to the home base. But I just can’t help but mourn for what could have been. A bunch of wild witches with no adults to tell them how to behave. Yeah, gimme more of dat. My other issues has to do with the story plot. Why in the frankenfarts do they pick wives if they know many of the fiancés won’t return? How in the actual fudge does that make sense? It doesn’t. And it really fricken bothered me. Here is an idea idiots, maybe pick from whomever is left over. Like why? Also….WAIT….I just thought of one more four star thing. The last page or so is a bit unclear to me. I wasn’t sure what exactly happened. I had to actually randomly message someone that read it and ask what happened on the last page or so. I like definitive and it wasn’t quite that. But this is more a reader’s preference. I’m curious to see how other readers received it.

Anyways, Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the advanced read. St. Martin’s press publishers sure have the eye for good shit!

I love that this type of book is finally being marketed to younger generations or to those who read YA because of the simplicity and honesty of the storytelling. This book will definitely be great for fans of Handmaids Tale.

This book was a little bit problematic for me and not because of the idea of the plot itself, but because of some of the turns it took. These are just my opinions and tons of people seem to be disagreeing with me. So if this book is on your TBR to try out I would say go ahead give it a whirl. This author writes beautifully, I would definitely give another one of her books a go. Every one of the paragraphs just flowed right along.

The main character Tierney was very a very willful child or seemed to be. Her dad kind of treated her like a boy which was fine by her. All she wanted from her Grace year was to make it out alive and come back to work the fields. She does not want to get married off, so when she gets chosen in the ceremony she is shocked beyond belief. Also, I have to say everyone who is important in this book gets a unique name like Tierney, Ryker, Anders, Hans, etc… the not important people like Hannah or whoever have plan names why is that?!?! Tierney at the Grace Year “camp” seems to get on well for the first part she is so helpful trying to bring everyone together then it starts to unravel. This is kind of where the story loses me and there are spoilers ahead so if you don’t want to know more just skip to my comment section!



********SPOILERS*******
Tierney just gives it all up after being captured for a boy, a boy she just met. The whole point in the book is for women to take back what they have lost. She’s this independent take no prisoners woman, who can do this, and he captures her, and she falls in love? She’s known Michael her whole life, he says she doesn’t have to change he will help her. Like WTH? Also, she was sooooo worried about her friends at camp and how they were doing but she just stayed in that hut for MONTHS?? I get that’s how we get the other side’s information on the Grace Year but seriously? Then at the end when she reveals that she is preggo with his kid and Michael covers for her instead of all the women revolting and standing up for what they believe they just cower behind her. And then send a child outside the gate!! How is that for change?

I do like that they left everything better for the next years girls, and I really did enjoy the first half of the book and how it was very much Lord of the Flies and I wanted to see how the girls where going to band together and change the world. However, they didn’t… Also the book just ended and that drives me nuts.

I guess the ending bothered me more than I thought.

In an unknown country, in an unknown time period, there sits an isolated, pre-industrial village known only as 'the county', where the name of the game is "Patriarchy, Patriarchy, Dear God What The Hell Is This Maddening Super-Ultra-Mega-Patriarchy?". Women are either wives, servants, or whores---but more often than anything they're corpses, seized and dismembered for the 'magic' that supposedly resides within their flesh, or sent to the gallows on paper-thin pretexts by the men closest to them. Before being forced into marriage or servitude, the village girls are sent off to spend a year---the titular "grace year"---in some unknown place in the wilderness. Not all of them will return. And those that do return, likely won't return whole.

THE GRACE YEAR is one of those books that hooks you on the first page, then drags you, kicking and screaming, through an obstacle course made of flensing knives and over a finish line set atop a briar patch. It's ostensibly YA, but vicious enough to get bumped up into the adult category. (Like many YA books, in my experience.)

What I loved: the writing, the psychological drama, the author's beautifully-done analysis of institutional sexism and her refusal to fall into the "all men are evil and all women are brainwashed" tropes I feared when I started reading. One thing I really liked is how a certain plot twist that I fully expected to occur (trying not to spoil too badly here) with the 'poachers' ended up never occurring; the control system the 'county' has instituted reaches far and reaches deep, and sometimes stories told to frighten people end up not being exaggerations at all.

What I didn't love: our heroine is oddly subservient to a particular character (as are other characters) despite there being certain reasons this makes no sense. Also, a romance occurs that I thought needed a bit more time to develop than it actually got (though overall I thought it was well-done).

Overall, I thought this was beautifully done.

A big thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

To me the novel The Grace Year is reminiscent of the short story The Lottery ,the novel The Handmaids Tale , the series The Hunger Games with the themes of the movies The Mean Girls and The Crucible.
In this world 16 year old young woman attend Veiling Day. They are either chosen to be a wife or a worker. Tierney is a tom boy ; her Father’s favorite . She’s not quiet and unassuming, she’s not a beauty with quiet grace. To her surprise her Father presents her with a veil, she is to be married but first she must rid herself of her “magic . She and the others must fight for survival against starvation, the weather conditions, the poachers and each other.
Thank you NetGalley and the punisher for the review copy of The Grace Year

The story follows 16-year-old Tierney, who’s about to undergo the most terrifying and mysterious journey of her life: A period simply known as the grace year. No one talks about the grace year and no girl entering it knows what happens, but when it’s all over, the rest of their lives have been decided. If they survive, that is.

As women, we're commonly told we have the powers of persuasion and seduction. However, what if we lived in a society that believed these powers were magical ones? In the world that Tierney lives in, this is a reality where all women are treated as the bringers of wrong doing. 

The Grace year is something that no one talks about, but everyone knows the truth of. For their 16th year, all girls go into the woods and are exiled in order to dispel their feminine magic. Like Eve in the Bible, women are believed to be the source of all problems and are treated as such in society. Including their year of exile, women are required to wear their hair braided at all times (except their husbands), the men select who they will wed, and anyone who does not marry is sent to do difficult work in the fields. Tierney thinks the magic isn't real and would prefer a life of hard labor to one of marriage. However, when plans go south and all goes wrong, can she adjust enough to overcome? 

First and foremost, this book is brutally dark in it's content. Not only are the women treated as second class citizens blamed for all wrong, but the Grace Year landscape is very "Lord of the Flies"-esque. As soon as the girls get to their exile camp, they turn on one another and even exile each other from camp for ensured death by the poachers. Poachers roam the exile area to kill the girls and skin them (in all its detail). It's disturbing, it's dark, and it's a very chilling portrait of what happens when you drink the kool-aid so to speak. 

 Tierney is a lovable narrator in how she wants more for her life than a husband who controls her every moment. She has spent her days doing all she can keeping all the boys at bay so that she isn't selected to be a wife before the Grace Year. The way she fights the system while attempting to navigate through it is intriguing. 

I absolutely loved this book, so much so that not only did I finish it in one sitting but, it is one of my favorite books I've read this year. I really see this book blowing up when it is released this fall!

Many thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC for my honest review.

I had no idea what I was in for when I started this book. It was part Handmaid’s Tale, part Lord of the Flies (and I think a dash of the Crucible?) If you were looking for a YA story with hard feminist themes and some serious survivalist tactics, this is the book for you.

I do think this book is best experienced not knowing too much going in, so if you’re hooked enough by the description above, I would read no more and just get the book asap. If you’re not interested, need to know more details, or have already read it and are just trying to validate your opinions, please continue.

What I liked:

I feel like this is hard to say I “liked” it, but I did find it interesting, and based on the setting, believable. The way the men in this world use their fear of the women to turn the women against each other is both terrifying and genius. It truly feels like a dystopian world that is not impossible for our future. There were a lot of parallels between this and the rules in the Handmaid’s tale, but the main difference is the grace year.

To remove their magic the girls of a certain age must leave the community for a year to both come into their magic and then dispel it. If they come back to the community with their magic, they will ruin everyone’s lives (apparently.) It’s kind of vague whether or not the magic is real or if it is just another way the men control the women and their actions.

Once the girls make it to where they’ll be staying for the year, things go kind of crazy. Are they actually coming into their magic, are they going insane from the isolation, do they just want it to be true, so they believe it? The book keeps you guessing all the way to the very end.

There are villains lurking from every corner, and they are all amazing. I hate them and they are despicable, don’t get me wrong, but oh were they written wonderfully.

What I was not the biggest fan of:

There was a romance in here that I liked, but I thought was unnecessary for the story. If that makes sense. Just based on the themes of the book, I think this was a spectacular opportunity to not include a hetero romance. I do understand why it was included and it does make sense, but it just didn’t click for me.

The timeline was so so confusing. Idk if it was just my copy, but it was so hard to note the passing of time. As the book is set over the course of over a year, it’s obvious that some time must skip around. For me those times were hard to find until after I had read awhile.

Overall Thoughts:

I do think this is worth reading, especially if you’re into feminist dystopians. The middle of the book is super fast-paced, and you’ll have it read in no time. I didn’t personally love the ending, but that could be just me, and I would still recommend reading it!

I hadn't heard/read much about this book before diving in so I didn't even know what to expect. Let me tell you, The Grace Years is intense, dark, shocking, and yet there are so many underlying issues that we can take from it and see in our own society. I don't know how I am going to put my feelings into words but I am going to do my best.

One thing I did know about this book was that it was dark. I didn't know how dark it was until reading it myself. It's one of those reads that will stick with you because of it and I'm sure that is what the author intended. I felt that there was a lot of correlation between the poachers and the girls which are where the darkest parts of the stories come from. They each have their reasoning for the madness but they don't realize how it divides them and conquers them which then brings on more death.

There are more issues that this book brings up, but the one that spoke to me the most was how terrible girls can be to each other. It goes with the whole divide and conquer I mentioned above. Reading about these girls and how cruel they could be to one another reminded me of a couple horrible experiences I had in school, both elementary and high school. I think that's why it was so easy for me to connect with the characters.

The plot is intense and shocking. It was hard not to put it down and I found myself devouring it faster than any other book. It was a bit slow at first but once the grace year starts, there is no turning back.

There is couple relationships that stick out that involve Tierney. Both boys are completely different and yet they both want what is best for her. Don't worry it's not a love triangle. I don't want to say anymore because I don't want to spoil it but, have some tissues readily available.

Tierney James just wants a better place for girls and women. She wants them all to get along and she realizes during the grace year it isn't that simple. And yet, she never gives up even when they want her dead. I loved her character and this book had me crying by the end. The ending is definitely one that will stick with me for many years.

A haunting read about frightened girls growing into strong women. This book is brutal and tragic and that is what made it so unforgettable to me.

I think it's safe to say this is my new favorite book in the dystopian genre due to the realistic exploration of the women. While this story explores a society where the women are oppressed like many others, the focus is on the women and how they learn to come together and that is why I loved this story. Yes the men can be cruel, but the story focuses on how the women use their limited power in society for a better tomorrow. The way Tierney's view of the women changed pre and post Grace Year was fantastic.

This is also an intimate story that lets us see all the heartaches and jealousies of the Grace Year girls as they struggle to survive their Grace Year. Yes there was a lot happening in this story at times, but at its core I saw it as an exploration of the society and the Grace Year Girls as they grew into women willing to stand together for a brighter future. The intimacy of this is what I found so engrossing.

The Grace Year is a great novel that has a new idea/premise to the dystopian genre especially with "survivor storyline". Characters are well developed, the action keeps the reader interested, and the author is someone that I will certainly follow to read her next novel.

Incredibly moving and deliciously written, THE GRACE YEAR is going down as one of my favorite reads of 2019. Liggett doesn't pull any punches, instead delivering a raw, thought-provoking story.

Wow! What a gripping, chilling read! I could hardly set it down! Was intense, shocking, twisted, and a bit disturbing, which I love. Unputdownable!
Will definitely will be raving about this one!

Honestly, this is one of the best books of 2019! Picture The Handmaid's Tale mixed with Lord of the Flies and you'll get this horrific beauty of a book! I'll admit, the overall story is nothing we haven't seen before - our protagonist, Tierney, lives in a world where women are seen as dangerous beings, possessing magic that can lure men, and as a result of this, the women's lives are tightly controlled - they can either become loyal wives or (if they're not desired) work in the fields. They also, in their sixteenth year, are banished to a small, enclosed clearing - surrounded by Poachers ready to catch the girls and sell their 'magical' body parts - outside of their hometown so that they can release their magic and return purified. This is called the Grace Year, and this is where it gets all Lord of the Flies.

This story is about survival - not surviving the men or the wilderness, but surviving the other women. I absolutely loved how the author portrayed women in this book - they are terrifying but so damn real. They are manipulative, sneaky and mean, just like the girls who bully one another in high school, but the ease with which they turned into gruesome, violent animals was what made this book so disturbing. Some really horrible things happen in this book, and still, it somehow managed to feel uniquely female. The characters became unpredictable to the point where I was stressing the hell out, reading as fast as I could, needing to know what happened next. Tierney was also an interesting character to see the world through, because while she's got hints of Katniss Everdeen, Jude Duarte, and other 'strong female YA characters', she didn't feel over-the-top or like a Mary Sue - she remained naive and vulnerable enough to feel real. I think the biggest strength of her character was the way her thoughts were structured (it's a 1st person POV) and the fact that she persisted and survived so many horrific things (she's a difficult character to describe, just read the book!) It was truly a harrowing (and inspiring) exploration into internalised sexism and the more subtle ways living in a patriarchy fucks up everyone's psyche. Oh, and the life-threatening danger of IGNORANCE - that's a big theme as well. The book did have its issues - the overall pacing felt a little too quick and definitely sped up towards the end, and there were a couple of plot points that I personally hate in YA books (I won't spoil, but if you know me you can probably guess lol) - still the wild ride this story took me on honestly excuses all of that. I'm still lowkey shook that I was able to read and enjoy those plot points that I usually hate - that's how engrossing this book is!!! I feel like I'm just rambling now, but this book surprised me with how intricately it portrayed the dark side of the female psyche and the ramifications of generations of repressed anger. IT WAS SO DAMN GOOD.

Sometimes there are books that grab you from the first page and you are still thinking about hours after you put it down, this is definitely one of them. This book is full of rage, of passion, and of what can be overcome.

This story exists in a world where women have power, power over men, but they are sent away in their 16th year, the Grace Year, so that they can tame these powers and come back either be dutiful wives, or labourers. Except not everyone comes home, and hose that do are scared both mentally and physically. No one knows exactly what goes on in that year away, but no one knows what is worse; the elements, the poachers in the woods, or the girls themselves.

Tiereny knows from the beginning that this isn't the life that she wants, but she has no idea how to do so in a society that is pushing her in one direction.

This book took me in a lot of directions that I wasn't expecting and it was hard for me to put the book down from the first to the last page. This book explores womanhood, friendship, and how to break away from what everyone believes.

This book has been called a mixture between "The Lord of the Flies" and "The Handmaid's Tale" and I believe it does just that.

This book unfortunately was not for me at all. I feel like it had great potential, as the story idea itself is a great concept and I loved the feminist undertones, but I really didn't enjoy the execution and writing style.

The whole thing seemed to be a bit over dramatic. The story moves along really fast which I feel like a lot of people will love but I actually like things to move a bit slower. Things seemed to happen without any lead up. They just all of a sudden happened and I was like how did we get here. Too much happens in a very short period of time. I couldn't absorb it all and really feel it. Not much character development at all.

I liked the strong female lead and I do appreciate what she tried to do. Women working together and supporting each other to overcome the barriers put against them by men and even other women. Women have the power to do so much when they work together. I found though that there were situations in the book that seemed to undermine her message such as the fact that all the other girls her age that are in the book are portrayed as mindless followers of the rules that cant think for themselves.

It also came off as a bit preachy. Instead of just telling the story and letting us absorb the message ourselves within the story, it would just tell the story and then sum it all up in a little blurb after explaining it.

Didn't care for the romance either or the outcome of it. I can't really say much about it because I don't want to give any spoilers but I don't like how the romance changed the main characters outlook on things. I felt like it undermined a lot of the great girl power stuff that was there.

I will have to admit though that because it was so fast paced, exciting and I wanted to see where the story was going to go, I couldn't put this down and read through it very fast. It pulled me in right from the start and I found it hard to put down.

I do think that teenage girls are going to love this book because it is so fast and exciting and I predict that it will definitely be a hit book with them.

I felt that I read two different books here. The epigraph features two quotes, one from The Handmaid’s Tale and the other from Lord of the Flies. Indeed, at least the first half of the book seemed to be a melding of the two stories, and not always a successful one at that. Liggett writes well, and I liked Tierney, the protagonist. But the echoes of the two books from the epigraph made at least the first half of the story feel derivative, and I never quite bought the reasoning behind some of the details of Liggett’s world.

The main premise is of a repressive, patriarchal society that sends its sixteen-year-old girls off to an island for a year to rid themselves of their dangerous witchy magic which supposedly can ensnare righteous men. Life there is brutal, with danger not only from the girls’ savagery with each other but from an outside group as well. But the society’s belief and fear of “magic” seemed tenuous at best, and the extremes to which the society goes to rid itself of it beggared belief and seemed to be added mostly to differentiate this story from its predecessors. <spoiler> I found the whole notion of deliberately sending off their girls to die/kill each other/kill themselves to be hard enough to buy. But paying outcasts literally to butcher the girls and then for members of society to cannibalize them made absolutely no sense and seemed to be added for the shock value. </spoiler>

The last part of the book does, indeed, take a turn away from those earlier stories with a few twists and surprises. But even some of these, while a welcome change from what I expected, left me questioning the reasoning behind them. <spoiler> If there was such a network of women working to change society, why in the world wouldn’t they break the silence more overtly about the Grace Year at least to those girls most likely to join them? After all, the set-up was one designed to weed out potential rebels. And what kind of patriarchal society would give up leadership to a seventeen-year-old boy? </spoiler> All in all, Liggett’s writing was smooth and skillful enough to carry me through the whole story, but I finished with a vaguely dissatisfied feeling.

I really liked this book. I thought the characters were well fleshed out and the worldbuilding made the story come to life. I did struggle a bit a first with the dystopian aspect. I'd love to see this as a movie, or a storytelling podcast.

A provocative novel about young women being sent into the woods to release their power, the power the men claim over them. It is a tragic and empowering novel all at once because the novel focuses on the power these women have, or rather do not have and the voices they inside them.

History has proven that men like to base their weaknesses on women. This novel capitalizes on that idea in a setting like that of the Salem Witch Trials. However, instead of condemning a woman to death for their “magic,” although that does happen, here they send them off at sixteen to fend for themselves in the world and rid themselves of their so-called magic. Living alone in the wild gives the girls a chance to release any frustrations they have because, after this, their lives become nothing more than glorified prisons. The young women in this novel live in a society reminiscent of that in The Handmaid’s Tale, one where they are only valuable if they have children and become the voiceless wives they were meant to be, women with no thoughts of their own. That is what is so provocative about this novel because it is relevant to today. However, for Tierney, she fights and goes against the notion. Tierney does not believe in the magic she is a girl of science and fact, and that is what makes her stand out as a character. As a character, Tierney is both fierce and willful, but the part that resonates with the reader is how she pulls herself out when she falters. In these moments, when she thinks of breaking and conforming to the social norm bred out of a culture of misogyny and sexism, the reader sees the strength she has as a female character to fight against it.

That is what makes this novel so compelling the fact that these girls are put into a box and yet, even those who do conform, want nothing more than to escape the boxes. These girls want to express their frustrations, their anger at the world and share their opinions and ideas to make the world a better place. Ultimately, all these girls want to strive for is a world of equality, a world where they do not have to fear the men persecuting them.

As a story, it is compelling and thoughtful. The rising tension keeps the reader rooted to the story, and the story itself, the magic aspect, it keeps the reader guessing as to whether this “magic” is real or just a powerplay used to keep the women subservient. It leaves room for so much discussion and so much thought-provoking nature. It has great twists and turns, as well as incredible character development. Ultimately the tension in the novel and the gripping nature following the brutality of these girls who are so forced to fit into this little box and still live and die every day, much like Schrodinger’s cat, brings a resounding message to the story.