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.

What a trip! Extremely hard to put down, unlike the poor women and girls in this novel. In a society where a woman’s only value is her ability to bear sons ( and too a far lesser extent, daughters) there isn’t much hope. Girls in their sixteenth year go to a remote location for their grace year. It is forbidden to talk about this year, so they are sorely unprepared for the dangers including the poachers just outside camp.

Sooo much happens in this book in just a little over a year! Despite this, there are some gaps in the story, perhaps for a sequel to fill in for us? Ie- Tierney our main character lives outside the camp for a number of months in the year. We only have a general idea of what has gone on in camp in that time, we also have no idea what things were like back in the colony for the year.

The ending manages to both satisfy but leave you wanting more, I want to know what will happen in many characters lives as time passes. This book is absolutely going to be a bestseller!

Overall I enjoyed The Grace Year and would recommend it to fans of the Handmaid's Tale. I thought some parts of this were really strong and I liked the worldbuilding, however, it was not clear how quickly time was moving throughout the novel which led to some confusion. I liked that it was broken up into seasons but then months moved so quickly during these seasons that some of the character and relationship development didn't feel earned.

I liked the main character Tierney and enjoyed the way she changed throughout the novel. She constantly fights against her restraints and talks a big game but then becomes terrified and unsure once she is met with consequences. I liked her relationships with the other girls in her grace year and the empowering messages for women. Strength and unity were huge themes throughout the novel.

The middle was a little meh but I think a large part of that was my confusion with the pacing and time passing.

This book was a little Handmaid's Tale, a little Hunger Games, and a little Lord of the Flies. I enjoyed the concept, but wished that the author would have gone a little deeper into the background of the town's functioning and history. Overall, the characters were engaging and the book held my interest really well throughout, though the narrative was choppy at times.

Wow. That's how you will feel after reading this book. I was intrigued by the fact that it is in the same vein as The Handmaid's Tale, and it does not disappoint. I read it over two nights - not because it was short, but because I could not put it down. Seriously, I neglected my children, husband and house so that I could finish this book. I would highly recommend it!

I went through a period where all I wanted to read were dystopian novels, but they became so popular that they started coming out in droves and the qualilty of work was not as high as some of my favorite dystopian novels, so I stopped reading them all together afer a few disappointing series. The Grace Year
sounded like it wasn't going to be the exact same book as so many other dystopian books over the last decade have been so I reluctantly picked it up. I am so glad I did. This was a breath of fresh air in the dystopian world. I absolutely couldn't put it down. It reminded me of a cross between The Giver and The Hunger Games. There were some interesting twists that I enjoyed being revealed and I thought the cliff hanger was excellent although now I can't wait for whatever is next in what will hopefully be a series! I absolutely recommend The Grace Year to anyone who enjoys dystopian fiction.

Tierney lives in a world where women are feared for the magic they innately possess. They're not allowed to gather in groups without supervision, hum, or dream. When girls are 16, they are sent away to live together for a year in an encampment far away to dispel their magic before they can rejoin the village and begin their adult lives. While they're gone, they're hunted by poachers and ghosts alike, but the most immediate danger might come from the scariest source of all...each other.

This book has shades of Lord of the Flies, a major dose of The Handmaid's Tale, as well a little bit of The Hunger Games and that M. Night Shyamalan movie, The Village. It's a feminist dystopian novel where girls/women are forced by men to see each other as the enemy until one is brave enough to unite them and make a stand. Tierney has always felt different and like she is destined to let down her family because she doesn't long for a future with a husband but for a chance to work hard and change the world. She's smart and she asks questions, and where she lives, that carries a lot of risk along with it. She's clearly a fighter who imagines a different life for herself, her sisters and her friends.

This isn't a happy book, by any means. There are some awful, gory things that happen as the girls learn to live together and try to survive their "Grace Year." Women bullying each other, ganging up on each other, extending the hand of friendship only to stab each other in the back...it's awful but it's also something every girl has experienced shades of (hopefully not to this murderous degree!) at some time or another. However, it isn't a spoiler to say that there are some that band together and choose to live differently: supporting each other against a common enemy, working together for a better future. Despite the horrors described in this story, it is, ultimately, a hopeful one.

There were a ton of twists and turns here, and I didn't see most of them coming. I couldn't put the book down because I couldn't wait to see what would happen next. There are some heartbreaking losses and several parts that made me want to cheer. You will experience ALL the feels as you work your way through this book. It's a deceptively simple tale with a much deeper message, and it works exceptionally well as both a horror story AND a feminist manifesto.

I'm not completely sure exactly what happened in that ending (I need to discuss with others who've read it to see if they interpreted it as I did), but I'm thrilled that Elizabeth Banks is going to direct the movie adaptation and can't wait to see it.

A fascinating premise and terrifying but poignant execution by Kim Liggett.

**Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!**

I would have enjoyed a little more setup in the beginning so that I could better understand what sort of world I was stepping into. There was also some information left out due to time jumps, and I feel like that could have helped me get on board during the slower parts. Although even when there was a small lull, the writing was enough to keep me interested in reading on.

I am not sure what to say about this book - it was a little slow to pick up but boy when it did...it did. This is a book that will keep you thinking about the characters and way of life long after you have finished. It reminded me of hunger games but was so much more with different twists and unexpected outcomes as well as a different way of life. I had high expectations from reading g the description and find myself even more impressed than I would have originally thought. Looking forward to more by this author
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