When I first started to read this book I tried my best to categorize it by things that have come before (think "Handmaid's Tale" meets "Hunger Games" meets "Mean Girls."). It drew me in because it became its own book because the main character, Tierney, was so strong.

On the surface, it is about the "grace year" - every year, all the 16 year-old girls in the village are sent away. The "lucky ones" that return are an absolute mess. What happened to them? Prior to leaving, the "lucky ones" are presented with veils by their new husbands (husbands they are given to by their fathers). During the grace year, they can be hunted down by poachers. The women are sent away to this ordeal to rid them of their magic and allow the survivors to return to the village where they no longer represent a threat.

This book is about a lot more than surviving the grace year. It has a lot of say about society's fear and control or women, how society sets up women to destroy each other to the benefit of men, and how women continue to survive despite this and find ways to support one another and challenge the system.

It’s absolutely brutal and kind of devastating. The premise is basically that in this patriarchal dystopian society, change can only happen if women band together for change instead of turning on each other for the scraps they are allowed. Which great! But also depressing! I think it’s trying to be The Handmaid’s Tale for Teens, but I don’t think that’s necessary? And when I say it’s brutal, I mean this book is not for squeamish people. Highlight include: a maggot infested axe wound, lopping off body parts and hanging them from trees, and a girl that sets herself on fire. I think overall that it was just too bleak for me to really enjoy it.

This was described as Handmaid's Tale meets the Power. I think it's a little more Handmaid's tale meets the Hunger Games with speculative magic, especially with the ending going the way it does. It was a slow start but then picked up with some hive mind / Lord of the Flies, then went sideways. If you like Dystopian fiction such as The Hunger Games, Matched, the Maze Trials, etc, this will be a solid reading choice for you and your YA library collection.

Every year, the village exiles their 16 year old girls to the wilderness for their Grace Year. During their Grace Year, the girls work to expel their magic--which makes them dangerous--and become suitable wives.

However, not every girl returns from their Grace Year, and the ones that do are often scarred both physically and mentally.

Tierney, raised in a manner more suited to the males of the town, has no desire to be a wife. She hopes that she remains unchosen so that she can work in the fields and have some semblance of freedom. However, on the day of the veiling (the process where men in town choose a wife from the suitable candidates) she is given a veil by someone she never expected, or that she wanted a veil from.

With the veiling, Tierney is put into a very dangerous position with the other girls. She is soon ostracized in the wilderness as the girls magic begins to come in and they begin to turn on one another. They send her outside the walls of the Grace Year encampment where she faces a number of new dangers, like poachers who kill Grace Year girls and harvest their parts for money.

The Grace Year feels a lot like Lord of the Flies, but with teen girls forced into the wilderness by society. The book's premise was really interesting and I was excited to read it. And I enjoyed about 75% of it. I didn't love the way the ending felt very hand-wavey. It could just be the fact that I really wanted the book to end with what amounts to an uprising and Tierney overthrowing the oppressive patriarchal system...and a lot of the build up to the conclusion of the story felt that it could be heading in that direction...but it just didn't.

The book was good, I'd recommend it but with the caveat that the ending may be less than satisfactory.

Kim Liggett puts her best foot forward with a fresh and gripping premise: The Grace Year explores a reality where girls are cast off in their 16th year to discharge their magical abilities in order to become more docile inhabitants within their patriarchal and panoptical society. We enter the novel through the perspective of Tierney James, a 16-year-old girl who lives in pursuit of questioning the assumptions passed down every generation. When she must undergo her own grace year, enduring the hostility of her own peers as well as preparing herself against the threat of poachers, Tierney begins to see what is truly at risk, as the beliefs that her community has staked it's existence on begin to unravel.

The Grace Year was a compulsive read. What I love about YA is how direct the writing can often be, making the most of its vocabulary without hesitating to move the plot forward. The novel's fast-paced style and positioning of the main character in precarious and compromising situations had me reading into the small hours of the night.

While the premise drew me in in a way that made me want to love the book from start to end, I ultimately felt that the book fell into certain YA trappings that at times make me hesitant to dive into the genre. As much as I wanted to align myself with Tierney's goals and her tough-to-break spirit, I couldn't help but find her character flat. While trying to be an independent, revolutionary character, Tierney's strong will became too easily compromised in the face of most adversity, making her character seem a bit self-contradictory. Despite not reading too much YA, I felt myself constantly thinking of The Hunger Games as I read on and was disappointed in the conventional love triangle embedded in the plot. While this book might hit a stronger note among younger readers, I think my prior familiarity with common dystopian/YA tropes made me a bit skeptical to absorb what this novel had to offer.

Thank you to Netgalley and Wednesday Books for providing an advanced copy of this book.

Imagine a world where women both young and old are believed to have magical powers, the ability to drive men and women crazy. That’s just the world created in this tale. When Tierney turns sixteen, she knows what’s coming. It’s time for her Grace Year. Banished to the woods for an entire year, she and her fellow female counterparts must find a way to survive. Very little food, minimal shelter, the constant threat of death from forces both known and unknown...it’s a battle to the very end. To make matters worse, they must also wage a psychological battle against each other. The question becomes, however, how many of these threats are real and how many of them have been perpetuated by society? Dark and deeply haunting, this was a compelling story right up to the very end.

Reviews comparing this to The Handmaids Tale are very much on point. This is a story where we watch as girls are constantly abused and disparaged by men in a multitude of ways- some obvious. some more insidious. This is a story where young girls are manipulated into believing in and actively participating in their own oppression. Perhaps the gravest manipulation is the leading of willing girls into a "grace year" where they will expend all of their evil feminine magic and return purified and ready for any form their future may take. That is, if they survive it.

Tierney is just one of these girls when her grace year comes up and going through that experience with her was horrifying and exhausting and often utterly disheartening. But watching her find strength for every next step reminded me of how powerful women really are and how important books like these are to remind us to never go docilely but to rage rage against all the would be oppressors and abusers determined to keep us down.

I'm quite excited to have discovered Kim Liggitt here and am looking forward into diving into her other offerings after I have a bit of time to recover from this one!

This was an excellent new dystopian world to dive into. It has been a while since I dove into a story like this one but I really enjoyed it. I cannot wait to see what comes next from this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me a digital copy of this book. The premise sounds a bit ridiculous but I thought the same of Veronica Roth’s “Divergent” and I was obsessed with that series long after finishing it. The writing and word choice are stellar. It was artistic without being to wordy or out there. Also I love the cover. It’s simple and elegant. The color will likely discourage boys from reading it as other’s opinions matter so much to teens.

Received via NetGalley for review.

The Grace Year is a year where all young women, at the age of 16, are sent off to the wilderness to "get rid of their magic," which ensnares men and is uncontrollable. Speaking of it is forbidden, even amongst other women and the women who they've undergone it with. Women are not to be trusted, and must be strictly controlled and managed lest they bewitch any unsuspecting man. However, there are many more women than men, and only the lucky few are able to be married and become a wife. All others are sent to be the workforce on which the County depends. Tierney is your typical tomboy, who would rather work in the fields than get married after her Grace Year. What she doesn't realize, however, is how much this will hurt her when the Grace Year finally comes.

What the Grace Year actually entails is a well-kept mystery until it actually begins to happen, which is a great choice on Liggett's part. The reader is as curious and apprehensive as Tierney, especially as little hints escape. When it does finally arrive, very little time is wasted before we get into the violence and manipulation that such a society demands their women hide.

While I wish more time had been spent on the encampment and the girls rather than the romance, I appreciated that nothing is truly settled, even though small steps are made. This is truly how societies change: small changes of attitude and behavior, not huge collapses overnight, as much as we might wish it.

Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan publishing for the E-Arc copy of The Grace Year.
A dark dystopian novel about a world where women are to be seen and not heard. The novel has a very adult tone to it and younger teens may not relate as those over the age of 15. I was a little disappointed in the ending that we come to once it in it's climax. I think that it's very well done and gripping just be prepare for the originality of the story it's very dark and driven.

I wish I could give this book more stars, because the premise is incredible. But it failed in too many ways for me - underdeveloped world building (where are they? When are they? What happened before this with the resistance and what could happen after?). It was very predictable. Fell prey to the YA low triangle trope. The writing felt stilted - to be honest, like the author was trying to hard to emulate The Handmaids Tale. It kept me reading because I was fascinated by the plot though.

A very interesting book. This book kept me interested the whole time. This definitely shows just how brutal and violent girls can be when placed together for a year on an island. This book lived up to it's description and more.
I still can't wrap my mind around some of it.

Riveting but not unique. I had to keep reading but I never felt the joy of a truly unique book. I wanted more at the end and less of the romance. I feel like somethings missing, though I ddI enjoy most of the book.

I’ve been craving a well-written, unique story that I can get lost in...and this was it for me. This book won’t be for everyone, but there are elements that we can all relate to. It’s a cross between The Crucible, Lord of the Flies, and The Handmaid’s Tale, but wholly original. It may be too intense for some readers and will appeal more to female readers.

The Grace Year is a gripping read, but I feel a bit let down by its ending -- though it comes together with what the writer has foreshadowed, its end is one big anticlimax. I really didn't need another dead teenage girl to motivate one more link in the cycle, and I found the collaborative secret rebellion to be overly convenient to the plot. This is a shame, because otherwise this is a rip roaring sometimes gory never dull adventure. If only the end had lived up to the rest!

Misogyny, subjugation, but above all the horrible things girls and women do to each other out of fear and Envy are the cautionary themes in this gorgeous, dystopian tale set in an undefined time in an undefined place. Absolutely one of the best new books I’ve read in a long time, imagine a beautifully written mashup of the Handmaid’s Tale and the Lord of the Flies, with the page turning excitement of the Hunger Games. It is packed full of tears, fears, friendship, love, joy, and hope. No YA fan will want to miss this gem of a book. I am telling everybody I know to look out for it! Well done!!!

Thank you NetGalley for the free ARC.
In this dystopia, girls allegedly have magic when they start menstruating and they are promised in marriage, but must survive a year in the wild to "lose their magic". The girls are incredibly cruel to one another and of course, ignorant of what is really going on. This is Lord of the Flies with girls playing the parts. Interesting concept.

I read this book pretty much in one sitting, I need to know what happened next..

Tierney lives in a community where each year, all sixteen year old girls are sent to live in isolation for 13 months so their 'magic' develops and is dissipated. At the end of this they return home to be married or enter a place of work..Any girl who tries to escape is at risk from being killed by Poachers and rendered into miracle cures, the sisters of girls who cannot be accounted for at the end of the year are banished.

We follow Tierney on her Grace Yer which turns out to be Little House on the Prairie meets The Handmaid's Tail meets Mean Girls meets The Revenant meets Lord of the Flies meets Picnic at Hanging Rock meets Battle Royale meets Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

The main character is likable and sympathetic. Over the year we see how her relationship with her parents changes as she realises that all is not what it seems.(just as any daughter gradually realises that her mother is pretty much right about most things).

The relationship between the group of girls is scarily accurate, with the dividing into cliques and head games. There's a lovely moment when Tierney realises that all the time she was climbing trees as a tomboy that she should have made time to cultivate female friendship to be able to weather the transition to adulthood. Obviously her attempts to unite the group and concentrate on survival fail and chaos ensures!

The horror unfolds deliciously and the fear felt by the girls is tangible.

A great read with a strong message.

A big thanks to NetGalley for the ARC I was given of The Grace Year in exchange for a fair and honest review.

You might be wondering: what would a book that blended The Handmaid’s Tale and The Hunger Games look like?

That’s a very simplistic read of Kim Liggett’s beautiful, haunting novel, but the similarities are there. Every year, the girls in Tierney’s village are sent away to a secret destination to be rid of the “magic” that women have in order to allow them to successfully step into their roles as wives. Of course a shrewd reader will know from the beginning that “ridding the girls of magic” really translates to breaking their spirits to form obedient wives. As you might imagine, The Grace Year (which is shrouded in mystery because it is protected by a Fight Club level rule of secrecy) is not fun. It is designed to break the girls down in unimaginable ways.

So, what would it look like? If Kim Liggett wrote it, it would look a lot like a masterpiece and no, I don’t think I’m overselling this. The book was hauntingly written in a lyrical, almost hypnotic style, but still managed to keep the tension physical and thick. I could not stop reading this book. First and foremost, this is the story of women and how we are taught from birth to see each other as competition. It is about our internalized misogyny. But it’s also about the way that can and will change if people continue to make changes when they can. Even the “villain” was well developed and deserving of sympathy. I fell in love with these girls and their pain, but man, Tierney. I was obsessed with Tierney and her story: she was strong and brave, but also beaten down by life. She was flawed: as her mother says early in the novel, “[her] eyes are wide open, but [she] see[s] nothing.” It is her experience that creates a deep inability to trust that at times really blurs her ability to see truth.

Small spoiler alert: there’s a love story here and it’s really, really lovely. Normally I hate love stories in this kind of book. Like, you’re dirty and starving and maybe gonna die, but why not take some time to get all swoony? This is not that. It felt authentic and natural, yes, but it also gave the first glimpse of hope in a novel that was readable bleak.

I know it’s only February and this is slightly premature, but this is for sure on the short list for my absolute favorite book of the year. It has been months since I’ve read anything that hit me this physically, this stayed with me this long, that affected me so profoundly. I truly loved this book.

5:/5: Must Read.

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