Wow. Just wow. The Grace Year by Kim Liggett is a book that I could not put down.
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I know I would have flown through The Grace Year in a matter of hours if my family hadn’t gotten sick. It’s okay, I just had to take care of them instead of reading 😉 But they’re feeling better, I’m still feeling good, and I finished this fantastic book.
No one speaks of the grace year. It’s forbidden.
In a world where women are told they are the lesser sex and that they have the magic to lure men away from their beds, Tierney James is about to start her grace year, where she’ll be rid of her magic once and for all. Even though she has never felt her magic.
This book was so good. It was also a bit horrifying at parts (think Hunger Games or Lord of the Flies). I wanted to look away but I just couldn’t stop reading.
Every year society, mainly the men, sends these almost marriage aged women (teens) to their grace year. Where they have to get rid of their magic or be banished from society. But, these girls don’t know what to expect from the next year, because no one can talk about what happens there.
While on the island, there are poachers around the camp who make money if they capture and kill and skin any of the grace year girls. But it becomes clear to Tierney that if the girls tried, they could help each other and more of them would survive, but no one wants to listen to her.
I really like Tierney as a character. She wanted a different life, a better life where she was more than man’s property. She wanted to have her own life. She was likable and easy to relate too, even though I’ve never experienced anything like this. I loved how this story was told in first person, so we see everything exactly how it’s happening to her, very similar to The Hunger Games.
I also really enjoyed the overall story. I was turning pages so quickly, and so sad when I couldn’t be reading. The writing and the story had me sucked in from the very beginning.
I’m a sucker for romance, but the one in The Grace Year felt super rushed, but (and I may be the minority here) I actually still liked the romance.
Most of all though, I loved the ending.
It felt empowering as a woman. There was sisterhood and friendship and hope.
Obviously, we don’t have a world like The Hunger Games or The Grace Year, but it still made me feel empowered reading this and then looking at my daughter who will grow up and do great things.
5/5 stars
About The Grace 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.
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