The Grace Year by Kim Liggett (Website, Twitter, Goodreads)Also by this author: Blood and Salt, The Last Harvest, The Unfortunates
Published by St. Martin's Publishing Group on October 8th 2019
Genres: Dystopian, Girls & Women, Thrillers & Suspense, Young Adult Fiction
Pages: 416
SURVIVE THE YEAR.
No one speaks of the grace year. It’s forbidden.
In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, to drive women mad with jealousy. They believe their very skin emits a powerful aphrodisiac, the potent essence of youth, of a girl on the edge of womanhood. That’s why they’re banished for their sixteenth year, to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage. But not all of them will make it home alive.
Sixteen-year-old Tierney James dreams of a better life—a society that doesn’t pit friend against friend or woman against woman, but as her own grace year draws near, she quickly realizes that it’s not just the brutal elements they must fear. It’s not even the poachers in the woods, men who are waiting for a chance to grab one of the girls in order to make a fortune on the black market. Their greatest threat may very well be each other.
With sharp prose and gritty realism, The Grace Year examines the complex and sometimes twisted relationships between girls, the women they eventually become, and the difficult decisions they make in-between.
I love Kim Liggett’s stories and if you haven’t read one yet, you are definitely missing out. The Grace Year is her newest and not only does it have a cover that I love, but the story itself was one I didn’t want to stop reading. I’m definitely not going to tell you everything or give anything away so feel free to read on.
As the summary states, in Garner County, girls are told they have magic that makes men and women act out of character and the only way they can be cleansed and prepared for marriage is to be sent off for their sixteenth year to a remote area in the woods so they can release that magic. Unfortunately, not everyone comes back intact…or even alive. You’re probably wondering why they don’t just run away when they are on their own. Unfortunately, they can’t because that would mean their families and younger sisters could be banished.
The world that Liggett created in this book was frightening. Not only are these girls deprived of any kind of ownership of themselves, but they are forced to leave their families and attempt to survive in the wilderness with dangers outside and inside the fence. Since no one is allowed to speak about their Grace Year, none of the girls headed out each year have any sense of what they are walking into or ability to prepare and as you can imagine, that only creates bigger problems.
Tierney is the main character and I loved everything about her. Living in a very repressive (to women) society, she clearly saw where the issues were and what was wrong but as a young woman headed out to her own Grace Year, she doesn’t really feel like she can make a change in her village. Lucky for her, Tierney’s parents and sister did everything they could to prepare her without breaking any rules. Unlucky for Tierney, she is headed to her Grace Year with a girl (Kiersten) who is very angry with her due to the fact that her best friend, and the boy who will take over leading the county, Michael, has chosen to marry Tierney instead of her. As you can imagine it doesn’t create a great start to their year.
Initially the things Tierney learned from her parents help to get some initial things set up but as the days go by, she finds that those who were initially behind her to make their space livable, eventually trickle over to Kiersten’s group who are only interested in expelling their magic and become crazed. Just to make things even more interesting, the girls aren’t supposed to go outside the fencing because there are Poachers in the woods that are waiting to capture and kill the girls to then sell their body parts on the black market. When something happens to put Tierney on the outs with the other girls, she finds herself in a position she never thought she would be in. And no, I’m not going to say anything about it because you really have to read it to believe all the things!
The secondary characters in this book were all interesting and necessary. Each one plays a critical part in Tierney’s story and get her from the first to the last page. Trust me when I say that there are some you will love and some you will really hate…yes, hate. I can’t even tell you everything about them because I don’t want to ruin any bit of this story. As Tierney’s year comes to a close, she learns so much about herself and the girls around her. She also finds herself in an unexpected position that she has to figure her way out of.
That’s about all I can say about this book without giving anything away. It has a fast pace and a great story that once you pick it up, you won’t want to put it down until you get to the end. Just brace yourself because Liggett doesn’t take it easy on her readers and if you’re like me, when you hit the end of this book, you’re going to be looking to see if there is more because I really wish there were. Liggett has become an auto-buy author for me and if you enjoy a good dystopian, you should pick this book up when you can.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the early copy in exchange for an honest review.
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