This was an unrelentingly sad and violent book, but it’s written beautifully and the ending really blew me away. I definitely had moments of frustration—the pacing is a little uneven, and there’s some instalove issues—but overall this is a really strong, dark story.

The one thing that did really grate on me, and I want to mention in case it’s an issue for anyone else, is the use of historical facts as “gotcha” style plot devices. The girls are from a Puritan-esque society that believes that teen girls are inherently wicked, and must be banished to an island to burn off their magic before they’re marriageable. Spoiler alert: the real source of the “magic” is based on a myth many people still believe about the Salem Witch Trials. Also there’s a plot point that involves allusions to how the colonists gave indigenous Americans smallpox. None of this is bad writing, per se, but it did induce some eye-rolling from me. Plus, it served to cast Tierney and Ryker in the pall of the “white girl/savage native man” trope which isn’t a good look for anybody, even though this certainly didn’t seem like the author’s intent.

Whoa...just WHOA. This is hands down one of the best books I've read in years. Shocking, captivating, and original. It's the unicorn of books. Everything amazing in a neat little book package. Cannot recommend highly enough. Everyone must read this book.

The Grace Year is definitely one of the Books of the Year! The concept put forth is different and renders for a story that the reader will not forget.

Brilliant prose and heart-grabbing material !

Many Thanks to St. Martin's Publishing and NetGalley for a great read !

I really enjoyed this story. It was heart-wrenching and wonderfully written. It will be a hit with fans of "Handmaid's Tale."

I was really excited when I first read the description for this book and thought it was a very interesting concept. Unfortunately it was very formulaic and had a very predictable love story. I wish I had known that before, as I generally stay away from books that have relationships like this one. The mystery behind the "illness" ultimately wasn't that exciting and the ending wasn't anything great either. Too bad, I was expecting this to be a whole lot better.

I loved this book. It will be featured on my blog in a future themed post about the religious right and the Quiverfull movement. Thank you for providing me with a review copy.

A unique tale reminiscent of lord of the flies and a handmaid's tale with a sprinkling of the knife of never letting go. Girls pitted against each other in an oppressive society only interested in compliant women. This book was engaging. I do wish the ending had been a bit stronger but absolutely worth the time invested to read! Thanks to the publisher and netglley for an eARC.

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 is by for the best book I have read in a long, long time. AND I read a lot of books. I love the whole dystopian setting as well as the female characters. I love The Handmaid's Tale, the bok as well as the hulu show, and this certainly ranks up on the scale with Atwood's handmaid. It kept me guessing. I never once figured something out before it happened. It kept me reading from the very first page all the way to the end. If you like this type of literature... this is a must read.

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.

While it only took me a couple of days to read The Grace Year by Kim Liggett, I held off for a while before writing my review. This book was a lot to digest, and unpack. The comparisons to Handmaid's Tale and Lord of the Flies are not leading potential readers astray however, I do believe the depth of the story is closer to Atwood.

Liggett's main character, Tierney James, is a stubborn and intelligent girl with strong opinions. The concept of becoming a wife is repugnant to her yet she finds herself with a veil placed on her head before she heads off on her Grace Year. The fact that no one is allowed to talk about the Grace Year and that girls sometimes don't come back is enough to set the reader on edge. With the historical setting it is reminiscent of the Salem witch trials where any little perceived slight could end in a harsh punishment.

The book shows how a society can groom people for violence against those who should be their allies. It shows how strong relationships can still be shrouded with secrets all in an effort to protect each individual. Liggett does not shy away from all of the obstacles that make change such a daunting prospect.

Overall, I really enjoyed The Grace Year. Some sections did feel rushed however trying to take on the span of a full year can lead to dull filler which was avoided. The tone of the novel was haunting yet hopeful, if that's possible? And I am all about a good twist to send both the readers and characters spinning. I would be down for a sequel, just saying.

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.