Here it is June and I may have found my 2019 favorite already. The Grace Year was everything I wanted it to be, possibly more.

A haunting story made rich with vivid descriptions, eerie characterization, and nail-biting suspense. With multilayered characters and intimate writing, Kim Liggett set my imagination ablaze. This is thriller at its best.

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for a copy of this book!!

WOAH. Going in blind, I had all the questions about what “The Grace Year” was and what the magic was, that the Grace girls possessed. Thoughtfully provoking, compulsive and suspenseful!!

“Your eyes are wide open, but you see nothing.”

It’s not what you think and it’s better than you can imagine! Don’t start it unless you’re prepared to finish it in one sitting!!

5 STARS!!

Is it safe to say this is one of the best books I have read in a long time? Honestly, I just finished it about a minute ago and I am still in shock. I am blown away.

I've read some of the reviews comparing it to The Hunger Games, and while I could see where the similarities are, The Grace Year is so unique and so different and so chilling and so eerie. It is in it's own class of Dystopian novels.

This book was everything. It was written in a way that honestly took my breath away. It was beautifully written. The descriptions were perfect. It was scary, I won't lie. I had to put it down for a few minutes here and there because it was terrifying. It was terrifying because it felt so real, yet at the same time it felt so unreal. I am having the hardest time putting my feelings into words because, like I said, I am blown away.

Tierney is everything I could want for a main character. Everything she felt and how she responded felt so real and authentic and my heart broke for her the entire book. The love she felt and the absolute hatred she felt was something I felt reading along. The other characters, you just loved them or hated them. Ryker, for example, is a character I am absolutely in love with and I just wish I had more.

I am trying to put my feelings into words, without any spoilers, because if you are reading my review deciding if you should read this book, I do not want to spoil an ounce of it for you, but just know, you NEED to read this book.

Think of every Dystopian novel you've ever read and then go beyond, because this is so much more than what you've expected from the genre. This story was captivating; I couldn't put it down. The details of the characters and their lives are thrilling and entrap you completely . I felt pensive, angry, scared, proud and then hopeful. I would read it and it's sequels again and again. 15 stars. An absolute piece of fine literature.

The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Hunger Games, The Grace Year is a memorable dystopian story of the resilience of the female spirit.

When the young women in Tierney James’ county turn 16, they’re banished to a fenced-in reserve on an island where they’re expected to spend 13 cycles of the moon releasing the “magic” into which all girls of this age grow — a period called the grace year.

Before they depart, the eligible men have their pick of the women, and many of them will leave for the year betrothed to a man they barely know who has decided to lay his claim on her. Tierney has other plans for her life, and, unlike most of the young women, she looks forward to a life without a husband or children working with her hands in the fields. But when her friend Michael chooses her to be his bride, the women will depart on a tumultuous grace year filled with drama, danger, love, and murder.

During the grace year, the women are expected to care for themselves using only a county-issued pack each. There’s a well for water, but it doesn’t take long for the well water to start having strange effects on the group, who drinks from it constantly. Kiersten, who had hoped to be chosen as Michael’s bride, quickly convinces the group that her magic is real and she’s powerful enough to control them if she likes. Her manipulation coupled with the effects of the well water leads to a Hunger Games-esque story line in which Tierney is alienated from the women and no one is truly safe from each other — or the poachers lurking just outside the gates hoping to sell the girls’ dead bodies for their “magical” powers.

Liggett does an astounding job drawing the reader in to Tierney’s story, her struggle against the way of life she’s been taught, and her desire for something more than a Handmaid’s Tale-style life of docility and subservience. While I rooted for Tierney, I also rooted for the women who were afraid to speak up for themselves and simply wanted to please their parents and future husbands or bosses. The characters outside of the main group of girls added some fun suspense and romance to the story that really added to the overall plot, and I couldn’t wait to get back to this story each time I put the book down.

Liggett offers us an important new piece of modern feminist fiction, and I recommend this one for fans of dystopian fiction like The Hunger Games, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Lord of the Flies.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Have been interested in reading this since I started seeing mention of it on Twitter, in the writer-verse. As soon as I found out NetGalley had it up for grabs, I was so there. And I don't regret being hyper about it at all.

**NO SPOILERS**

The story follows Tierney, a tomboy in a world of girls who are basically expected to be primed to be walking incubators, more or less. Very much heeds back to Handmaid's Tale, eh?

All girls in her world need to be sent away for a year, to rid themselves of a magic that brings men to their knees, can make them control the men. Which is where our story begins, essentially.

The book follows the girls in her year who are sent away, and the things they discover about themselves, each other, and the world around them. Horrifying though it may be.

There's loads of surprises, twists and turns, all of which I loved, and all of which actually worked well for the story. The ending wasn't what I was expecting either, but I really enjoyed it, instead of being disappointed for not getting what I wanted!

Definitely something to look forward to!

This book was so good, so much better than I thought it was going to be actually. Initially I was not going to read it but it was available to read on NG to I took a chance and I am glad I did because I really liked it. I am not a big fan of dystopian books in general which I was I didnt want to read this one. However, from page 1 I was drawn in. Tierney is an amazingly strong and well-written character. She is 16 and this society, the girls in their 16th year are first put through a veiling ceremony where they are possibly chosen for marriage by their male counterparts or other available older men, and then sent to an island in the wilderness for an entire year to discover their magic and basically survive on their own with very little help from anyone. They are given some supplies shelter and some really gross well water that is infested with algae or something.... Tierney is the only one of the girls in her year with any common sense or any survival skills, who can actually lead them to survive in the "Lord of the Flies" type atmosphere they are sent to live in. The magic is all in their heads and Teirney figures out what is really going on eventually. Poachers are paid handsomely to kill the girls who leave the fenced in area where they live for the year so survival is not in their favor. There are many other things involved in this amazing novel of survival and learning to love & live with each other in spite of out-dated and ridiculous beliefs. I highly recommend this book! I loved it! THANKS so much to NG for the ARC!!!

I had no idea what to expect beyond seeing it compared to The Handmaid’s Tale. I’ve also been struggling to review it because it’s not the kind of book I normally read!

As the opening chapters played out, I found myself thinking, “WTF am I reading?” and yet I couldn’t put it down.

It was like The Village crossed with The Handmaid’s Tale crossed with magical realism but not really?

I loved Tierney, she is fierce even if a little naive. She doesn’t accept what the patriarchal society around her tries for force her to be, but she doesn’t entirely understand how to navigate everything.

“Your eyes are wide open but you see nothing.”

I would have liked to see more world building, as there weren’t any explanations that I recall of how the County came to be and would have like a few of the characters to be fleshed out a little more.

This book isn’t for everyone, it’s pretty intense. But if you’re looking for a suspenseful fast read thriller with themes of rebellion, feminism, survival and a whole lot of girl power with a healthy dose of weird - this book may be up your alley!

I ended up rating it 4 stars because it did read like a fantasy novel for me and the writing pulled me in so quickly and wouldn’t let go.

Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan for the review copy of this book for an honest review.

I received this book free for an honest review from Netgalley.

OMG! I grabbed this because someone said it was “read now” on netgalley for 72hours. I am so glad I did. Dystopians are my favourite and this one did not disappoint! I was so invested in our main character and her story that I almost couldn’t put my book down even though I was reading it at work ahha. I even stayed up way past my bedtime to finish it.
I think it’s a stand-alone which will be good because I couldn’t bare waiting for the next one to be released. But I would love maybe a prequel telling other girls stories. Such an interesting survival of the fittest and group mentality story.
I would 100% recommend this to everyone.

The Grace year definitely lives up to its comparison to Lord of the Flies and The Handmaid's Tale, but while it takes on some of the devastating traits of these novels, the story itself is something independent and so incredibly heartbreaking.

I began this novel with the expectation of a standard young adult dystopian novel, but it was so much more. Beginning in Garner County, Tierney is a fiercely independent and defiant young woman in a society that does not welcome such traits. During her "Grace Year," she and thirty-two other girls are sent into the wilderness to come into their magic. As expected, things take a horrific and twisted turn for everyone involved. The sheer darkness and brutality of this novel had me in awe, unable to put the book down. However, in the same respect, the tenderness, trust, and love that grows from such horror creates a breathtaking story that, in the end, had me in tears.

When I got to the final page, I did not want the story to end. Much like Tierney, the story broke me and remade me in a way that I didn't expect. The Grace Year is an unexpectedly powerful, tragic, yet hopeful story that I didn't realize that I needed, and I desperately hope that this story will be continued. There is so much more left to be said.

It’s always a great experience when you read the perfect book at the perfect time. The Grace Year took me on an emotional journey I probably wasn’t ready for, but I think I’ve learned (or re-learned) some important lessons as a result. I will carry pieces of this novel with me for many years to come and I’ll be sure to recommend it to other readers.

4.5 Put everything down and read this one as soon as possible. I couldn’t stop reading. The writing flowed seamlessly and makes you feel as though you are there experiencing what the main character is. I wish this would have come out when I was young. It takes place in a dystopian world that feels very real. The horrors and expectations the women experience are realistically relatable and that’s kind of scary. The girls are sent off by themselves a year and end up in what reminds me of a totally illegal psychological experiment honestly. The biggest threat ends up being themselves and a movement is started that I’ve seen starting over the past few years. There is a major mood for feminism and if that word scares you, you should read it. Don’t worry they aren’t all holding hands and singing kumbaya at the end. Speaking of the end that’s the only thing that didn’t work for me. It got just a little too wordy with all the profound life changing epiphanies. It was obvious what all was life changing without going over it multiple times. Other than that this is absolutely on my top reads of 2019 and quite possibly top ever. I can not recommend this enough.

If you have heard the buzz about Kim Liggett's new novel, The Grace Year, then you know it is being touted as a cross between Lord of the Flies and The Handmaid's Tale. While similarities between these novels certainly exist, The Grace Year is its own story with its own set of rules and peculiarities.

In this dystopian world, girls are sent off to live at an encampment in the woods for a year when they reach the age of 16 - the grace year. Why is the grace year so significant? It is believed that magic exists within women - magic that is used to bewitch men. Yes, it is still a man's world, but even more so within this novel. The magic is believed to be strongest at the age of 16, a time when girls are reaching maturity and coming into their own. The "Grace Year Girls" are supposed to purge themselves of this magic during their time in the forest, but what happens at camp, stays at camp. That is, no one really knows what goes on during the grace year, except that many girls never return home. Not only are the girls a danger to themselves and each other, there is also a band of poachers hoping to snare one of the Grace Year Girls - their skin and body parts sell for a high place on the black market.

The Grace Year follows Tierney, who wants nothing less than to return home alive from her grace year only to become a demure and devoted wife to her future husband ... if she is "lucky" enough to be selected for marriage. Only a select few of the Grace Year Girls receive husbands - the rest are relegated to the fields, the outskirts, or even prostitution. The thing is, Tierney doesn't want to be married. To her, she might as well be dead, as wives are merely servants of their husbands, bending to their every wish and whim. Tierney has dreams of rebelling against the men in her village; breaking away from their ways and living in a world where women have rights.

As Tierney travels with the rest of the Grace Year Girls to the camp deep within the woods, she doesn't know what to expect for her year out in the wilderness. She just knows that if she wants to survive, she is going to have to try her hardest to protect herself. The group's resident "mean girl" Kiersten has her sights set on destroying Tierney, but it should not be forgotten that Tierney is a fighter. Just who will return from the grace year alive, and who will end up dead?

The Grace Year's stand-out areas are its beautiful prose and raw emotion. The book is better towards the end, allowing the readers to feel and experience what it truly means to be a Grace Year Girl. The relationships that Tierney has with the other characters is perhaps the truest part of this novel, which suffers from lack of world-building and clear plot development. There is a relationship with a boy that is the most genuine and intriguing part of the novel, and Tierney's friendship with another of the Grace Year Girls is sweet and endearing.

As stated above, there is a severe lack of world-building within these pages. Readers are thrown into this time and place, but without much background information on the how or why. This makes it difficult to understand or empathize with the girls' plight, and also causes much confusion - readers may feel lost in many places throughout the story. It is important when creating an alternate version of the world to give readers as much information about this new world as possible to make it easy to compare it to the one we know. It also helps to build compassion and concern in the reader for the characters. As a lover of the dystopian genre, this is what I found to be most lacking in The Grace Year and it left me sorely disappointed in a book for which I had great expectations.

In all, The Grace Year is a worthy read, but I didn't love it because it could have been so much more. Readers should note that there are some rather horrific scenes within these pages - this isn't a sugar-coated dystopian novel. Be prepared to read some graphic descriptions, a la Lord of the Flies.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for a digital ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

This book surprised me. From the premise, I knew it would be right up my alley, but I didn't expect to feel as I do. I found it next to impossible to put down. This was so well-written, so deep and harrowing, that I suspect it will haunt me for years. The voice was strong and intense, burrowing into my mind and heart, completely taking me in. While there were some twists I expected and storylines that were obvious to where they'd lead, there were also turns that I didn't see coming. And even the ones I did see coming, they were done in a way that just stole my breath. The slow bloom of the relationship between Tierney and Ryker was beautifully executed and utterly heartbreaking. The revelations the girls faced, realizing their entire existence had been based on lies, the way that they silently took part in the rebellion they'd been overlooking, added a glimmer of hope at the end. This has been added to my all-time favorite books, and I'll be pre-ordering the hardcover to add to my bookshelves.

There's been a lot of buzz about this book but somehow I missed the fact that it's YA which, if I'd known, would have qualified my expectations somewhat. It certainly revisits many of the tropes of other YA feminist dystopia: it reminded me especially of The Hunger Games but with a better romance. Needless to say, any similarity in literary terms to The Handmaid's Tale is negligible: this lacks the depth, the subtlety, the complexity, the sheer intelligence of Atwood - for all that, though, this is powerful in places with a more realistic ending than some books in the genre.

Where I think this could have done with more work is in the world-building (what is The County? how did it come to be? how big is it? what is outside? ) which seems to draw on puritan settlements with the talk of 'magic', the punishment of burning women alive, the hair, but which doesn't have much substance about it. How, for example, is it that 'we're not allowed to dream. The men believe it's a way we can hide our magic'? This is a community that understands vaccination, for example, so how does it propose to control and police an involuntary human process like dreaming? I appreciate that this is supposed to be symbolical of the patriarchal oppressions imposed by the society but it's just niggly when it doesn't seem literally possible.

I'd say, too, that the pacing needs a bit of a tweak: the first 50% is slow, slow, slow - not helped by the fact that the girls are barely characterised: we have Tierney (the rebel/saviour/heroine), her Mean Girl nemesis (cray-cray crazy!) and Gertrude, the put-upon victim. Everyone else is just a name.

And then there's Ryder - now, I have to say, everything perks up once Ryder makes an appearance! Even the writing gets clearer and more involving. And this is where Tierney suddenly understands the power structures and literal means by which patriarchy is practised in her world.

So despite some caveats, this is a books which I'd have probably loved as a teen - but as an adult crossover, it's too familiar, too simplistic for me: 3.5 stars for the good bits, though.

THE HANDMAID'S TALE meets LORD OF THE FLIES in this dark, atmospheric, and sweeping YA dystopian. Tierney James is 16-years-old, an age when girls are thought to come into magic that makes men lust for them and women jealous. In fear of this dangerous magic, the sixteen-year-old girls are sent off into the wilderness to release their magic, away from everyone else, for their Grace Year, a year when everything is secret but many do not return alive.

Girls are branded with their father's symbol at birth, marking them as property. Before their Grace Year, the boys of the same age and men whose wives have died or been sentenced to death (for hoarding/using their magic), can claim a bride through barters with their fathers. Tierney has never wanted to be a wife, even though this is considered the best fate, and she knows that she will go to a grueling manual job if she is not married. However, this has its own freedom, and Tierney longs for that freedom- even though many of those girls are sexually assaulted and physically worn down. The alternative fate is to be cast out of the county where they will work as prostitutes.

As Tierney and the other girls are forced into a brutal struggle for survival, hallucinating and punishing each other, Tierney begins to see bigger truths about the world around her. As her mother says, even though her eyes are wide open, she sees nothing. The Grace Year changes that and robs her of any innocence she had remaining. With poachers- men who slowly skin and dismember the girls who stray to sell to the county for youth serums- waiting at the edges, Tierney learns that the greatest threat may be from within as the girls turn on each other.

This book was dark, enthralling, and lyrically atmospheric. Impossible to put down, this book contains themes of feminism, survival, and social justice. The ending is a little open, and I would love to see a sequel to this book. A powerful read, this is one that will stick with the reader for long after the last page is turned.

Please note that I received an ARC from the publisher through netgalley. All opinions are my own.

The Grace Year is a highly symbolic novel with dark, disturbing, action-packed, and engaging story! This book is definitely one of my best read this year!

The Grace Year started with a dream, which intrigues me immediately. The author provides detailed information, and it helps me in visualizing the story. I felt like I'm watching the characters from their side, but I'm only invisible to them. How the story will go to is unpredictable. I might get some bits of ideas, but it would still surprise me. And the anticipation I get just to know what will happen next is always killing me. As the mysteries around starts to unveil, the small pieces that I get from the beginning start to connect.

The Grace Year also reminded me of The Hunger Games. I saw Tierney's struggles to survive this grace year, the same with Katniss trying to stay alive in the hunger games. The only difference is that this is about women and how long they can stay alive. How they will spend their grace year in an encampment and how they will last without being killed by the poachers that lurk near them.

The story also covers some issues that we know still exist until now - the inequalities the women are receiving in society. It has been resolved already by giving us the same rights as men, but we can't deny that some of us still feel it. This novel also reminds me of the lessons I had in Sociology & Anthropology this last semester about how the women fight for their rights and how it all started.

The story also shows how a person changed in a given situation. Will they still be the same? Will they change? If they will change, is it for the better or for worse? What will they do if envy and fear eat them up?

The characters have distinct traits that set them apart from one another. I like Tierney's toughness because she handles every situation well, even though some scenes somehow makes her weak. And, I think that is normal as sometimes, in our life, we will come to the point of almost giving up, but we will still fight and walk forward. Even though there was not enough exposure for the other characters, I was still able to know them because of how they were described and talked to by the other characters.

The story ended wonderfully. This novel brought me different emotions that I won't forget. It pains me and hates to see how they got in those situations. They don't deserve those but what could they do, that's how everything works in their county. But, I'm glad that it is slowly changing and this year's graces made a great impact on it. I still want more, though, to know what that little girl in Tierney's dream will do, but I am already satisfied with the ending.

This novel is quick-paced, and the readers will immediately get immersed in the story. I am recommending this book the most to my fellow women out there! Please note that this book has disturbing and brutal scenes.

Disclaimer: I got the advance reading copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

This book BLEW my mind to pieces.
Just when I thought I had something figured out, I quickly realized I had no idea.
Firstly, the main character, Tierney James, is a heroine from THE GODS. Like, she could not be more of a perfect, badass, strong woman for us all to look up to.
The whole thing could not have been written more perfectly. It was written and executed so beautifully and flawlessly that I have to wonder, is Kim Liggett some kind of writing WIZARD?!
Okay, but seriously - this was such a thrilling, moving, emotional roller-coaster of a story. I felt every word of it pressing into my soul as I devoured it. I felt the pain, the frustration, the suffering, the love, the beauty, the empowerment, I felt it all!
After reading this book I honestly have never felt so proud to be a woman. I think everyone should read this immediately.

Also I hate to do the whole inevitable comparison thing, as this book is ENTIRELY it's own, but I was getting serious Lord of the Flies meets The Handmaid's Tale meets The Hunger Games vibes? Weird but SO GOOD.

All girls are filled with a wild and dangerous magic. A magic that blossoms in their sixteenth year of life. That is why all girls must be sent away for a year to expel this magic and return to society as purified women.

At least, that's what everyone believes.

This is the story of Tierney James, a "grace year girl", who is about to face her own year of isolation and magic in the wilderness outside her small community. But Tierney isn't sure she believes everything that she has been taught her whole life about the dangerous magic of women. And she keeps having dreams that may or may not confirm her suspicions.

This book wasn't even on my radar, but I got an email saying it was available for 72 hours as Read Now on Netgalley and the premise sounded interesting, so I downloaded it. Can I just say a huge "Thank you!" to Netgalley for sending that email! This book was incredible, y'all! I loved the premise. The world that we are introduced to is rich and the mythos is well laid out so that we can quickly follow all the weird beliefs these people hold in Tierney's home town. The writing flows so well and pulls you in from page one. The pacing is excellent, keeping you on your toes and keeping you turning the pages. I seriously tore through this book, reading it within two days. I probably would have read it in one if I had uninterrupted reading time! The characters were well developed and I absolutely loved Tierney and her fierceness. This book was also an interesting look into a world where women are lesser than and what happens when you try to suppress their will.

I think my one gripe with this book were some of the plot points were a tad easily guessed, but that still didn't take away from my enjoyment of this book that much. Overall, this was incredibly enjoyable, fast-paced, and a beauty of a book!.