Thank you to the publisher for this book!
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Devoured this in one day. Well written page turner. A little to clean and neat at the end for me.

I have seen this compared to the hunger games and while the grace year itself is being sent away, I think the comparisons are unfair.

I really enjoyed this book. It's like Lord of the Flies with women.
In Garner County, the men have created a tradition that takes away women's magic. During the year of their 16th birthday, they have locked away far from the county on an island and permitted nothing but the most basic of supplies. Tierney is concerned about what is happening to all the girls. Is this truly magic? Is this something else?
I enjoyed that I didn't know how this story was going to go. At the halfway point, I thought I did but I was wrong. Kim Liggett kept you on your toes. We also only know what Tienery knows which keeps the reader just as much in the dark.
The novel also gives off The Maze Runner vibe. The girl must watch out for poachers who kill the girl and then sell their bodies parts as aphrodisiacs. The girls must venture into the forest without getting killed. This could be the female side of the Maze experiments.
Fun, thrilling, and thoughtful The Grace Year is a dystopian novel that YA readers will surely enjoy.

I received an ARC from the publisher; all opinions are my own.

The Grace Year girl is a book I've been trying to review for about a year and a half. The issue I have is that it's just so good I have a hard time putting into words how I feel about it. Tierney James is a character that's both caring and compassionate and strong and resilient. Garner Country is a highly repressive religious community, hard to tell if it's a completely other world or a future or past version of our own, but it doesn't matter, Kim Liggett wrote a world so complete that it stands on its own. We don't need to know what's beyond, because her world building is so complete. I'm finally giving up, I'm putting the most basic of what I can think of about this story down, because my fear is that I can't write the review that this book really deserves.

I've had a lot of false starts with this book. I've probably stopped and put it back down half a dozen times this past year. I kept going because my friends have raved about it and because it was such an interesting premise. I think, 74% through and a year and a half of trying, I need to just face facts that this story is not for me and maybe this genre isn't either. I get that it's meant to be a commentary of real world struggles but I read fiction to escape that not to feel the bleakness looking back at me with names and faces in a new world. There is much that others will love here, but sadly, not me. Thank you for granting me access.

Unfortunately I've just lost interest in this book. I just don't think it's a book I need to spend time on anymore, and I don't think my review would be positive.

This book had my attention from the beginning. The plot grabs you and keeps you reading. I have heard of the grace year and this was great.

This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I thought this was a unique take on a story of how petty and mean teenage girls can be. The era of this book is uncertain. Is it from far in the past or is it some strange village with really archaic rules? It's not at all clear, but it is something I wondered as I was reading. The concept of sending girls off to fend for themselves for a year in a camp. It's remarkable how horrible they were to each other and how quickly they turned on each other. I enjoyed Tierney as a character. She was clever and so different from the rest of the girls. It was an interesting coming of age type story.

4 ½ stars. This book packs a PUNCH. I was reminded of The Handmaid's Tale, Lord of the Flies (both aptly quoted in the epigraph), Glory O'Brien's History of the Future, The Hunger Games, and All the Truth That's In Me...and a lot of the best dystopian novels from the early 2000s/2010s (only better, because the feminism is more sophisticated, the character relationships are more nuanced, and the imagery/allegories were spot. on. The poacher/prey cannibalism theme--how women (literally) consume one another to survive in a violent, patriarchal society--and the presentation of "nice guy" insidious violence, were especially perfect for a YA novel. Unsettling, creepy, and effective.). I couldn't put it down! The ending was surprisingly emotional for me. Highly recommend, and will definitely purchase for my HS library.

Thank you to St. Martin's press and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader Copy!

I really wanted to like this book but I found I had to force myself to finish it. I found parts of the story engaging and interesting but other parts were just painful. I generally enjoy dystopian books but this one did not do it for me.

Holy cow, what a fantastic book! Minus the end being a bit disappointing. I’ll get to that later. But this book is up there as one of my favorite books of the year. It had everything I was looking for in a dystopian novel. It reminded me of why dystopia will always be a favorite genre of mine.

Tierney was an excellent main character. She reminded me of Katniss but I think I like Tierney more. Nothing against my girl, Katniss, but there was just something about Tierney. She was so unlikable but in a good way. I found myself rooting for her, even in the times where she annoyed me. Luckily those were far and few inbetween. Everything Tierney did was calculated and cunning. She was selfish but entirely giving at the same time, often risking her life for others.

The concept of the world upset me but it was like a good upset. If that makes any form of sense. Honestly, I was just terrified the whole time. Terrified for Tierney and terrified for all the women in this book. One of the scariest things about this world was how much it could actually become a reality. It reminded me so much of the Handmaid’s Tale, which I think was where a lot of the inspiration for this book came from. As I type out this review, I get a chill thinking about this world and how truly messed up it is. I would love to have a prequel to see just how this world came to be.

My one complaint about this book, which ultimately prevented me from giving it the full 5 (five) stars (but not enough to prevent me from buying this beautiful book) was the ending. I won’t give away any details or spoil it for you guys but dang, that ending sucked. I expected something major to happen, something that would tilt the world on its axis but nope. I was so disappointed. I hope that maybe Kim Liggett will write a second book and perhaps explain what happens after the events of the grace year but I’m not holding my breath. I will just have to sit in my disappointment.

Overall, this book was fantastic. My only problem was the ending but other than that tiny issue, I highly recommend this book. If you enjoyed the Handmaid’s Tale (the book, not the show because I’ve only seen one episode of the show and I wasn’t impressed by it) or 1984 by George Orwell, I highly recommend you check this book out.

ARC provided by the published through NetGalley. I am clearly very late.

I am still crying from this book. That ending killed my tear ducts.

The Grace Year follows Tierney, a teen girl about to enter her 'grace year' a year where all the girls of her age are sent to the woods for a year to rid themselves of their magic; right before leaving, you have the opportunity to be betrothed to any eligible man who chooses you, and you will be wed assuming you make it back alive. This book is a wild ride.

It is hard to talk about what I found so special about this book without spoiling anything, but I really loved the portrayal of feminism and how social change is implemented. I am not going to call out other books, but this book is kind of what I thought I was getting with a book I read previously. The setting of this world made me feel the way I felt when I read Shirley Jackson's The Lottery for the first time; the world didn't seem to call out to a specific place (somewhere with woods) or exact time and holds a warped mirror up to us to comment on women role in society.

I loved the way the world felt so insidious. The atmosphere and pace of this novel really worked for me. I absolutely flew through this book. Most of the book takes place over a full year, as the title would suggest, and I was invested in seeing what was on the next page my whole reading experience.

I will say the romantic dynamic used in this book isn't my favorite. I don't hate the trope, but I think it is both overused and often poorly used. This being said, clearly, it was not a huge detraction for me; I didn't think it was done poorly, and I so deeply loved the other aspects of the book it didn't really sway my opinion.

Circling back to gender dynamics. I especially loved this book's exploration of the ways women keep other women 'in their place.' The book literally has women cannibalizing girls in the hopes that it will help them have sons. That is just one example, and an extreme one, of how the book engages with this. It is so varied throughout the book, both in the ways women act and the way our main character reacts to it. Tierney goes from keeping herself apart from other girls, holding herself in higher regard in many aspects, to implementing many different strategies to integrate with the other girls during the grace year. I also really liked the inclusion of men who were clear allies to the advancement and equality of women, though this book's focus is clearly the women.

I will not spoil the ending, but it is such a poignant ending that encourages your imagination to run wild. I also hope it encourages the author to write a sequel. I am also not sure if I actually want that or if I just think I do because I loved this reading experience.

Last note, I am normally very squeamish and a giant baby. This book is full of blood, gore, and literal torture. I was only grossed out one time, but if those things are huge no's for you, I felt a heads up was deserved.

I recommend this book to people who loved The Hunger Games, to anyone looking for books that examine the cruelty of patriarchy in a fictional setting, and to people who like weird, disturbing stuff in their speculative fiction.

I loved the originality of this story. I could not put this down and I think this should be a book teenagers read in school though I'm guessing it would most likely become a challenged book first.

This book was brutal. Gory and gruesome. This was hard to read at times. Reminded me of the Salem witch trials. Girls pinned against each other in a fight to the death.

Such an original premise and executed well. I was thinking about this book a long time after I finished it.

This was so good!

This was my most anticipated book of the 2019 and I was not disappointed.

The world and the character was so good, and I loved that it had the standard horror vibe that I have come to expect from Kim Liggett's books. The feelning from this book and its story has this wonderfully dark aspect that really brings the reader closer to the story.

I would compare this with the Handmaide's Tale.

I would highly recommend people to pick this, and all of her other book, up if you love a dark and great story.

Don't get me started on the plot of this book? Helloooooo, it's gold. BUT the pacing was something I was NOT a fan of. And I'm still not sure which wins out in how i feel about the book...

This is an absolutely breathtaking book.
It could be said it was a book in the theme of The Handmaid's Tale but this book is original in its own right.
Girls are sent away for their Grace Year to rid them of their 'magic' before they come back to take up their roles of wives or labourers. Little is known about what happens in the Grace Year but the girls return afterwards haunted and a shadow of their former selves.
This book grips like a thriller and a horror story.
It is well written and the characters are so vivid that you live the story with them.
You could also say this book has mirrors of 'The Lord of the Flies' in it and this is definitely a story that revolves around the characters and what they are prepared to do.
Highly recommended and haunts you after you have finished reading it.
Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley in allowing me to read in return for a review.

The Grace Year has an interesting high concept, tight pacing, and engaging writing, and I can see why it was so commercially successful even though I wasn't quite the right audience for it. To be fair, not for the reasons you might think--like for one, if a book is going to have cannibalism, I want it to really deal with the cannibalism instead of just eliding the fact that the hero hunts and butchers humans for food (even if he may not have eaten anyone personally, sort of the equivalent of the historical romance hero who's the only soldier in his company that takes regular baths)--but while I do like dark feminist dystopias in general, ultimately this one just wasn't for me.

I found this to be relatively mediocre, to be honest. I just wasn't into it. I thought it had a really strong, interesting concept, but the execution wasn't as strong as the concept, and the story was somewhat forgettable.