I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Yet another late-night binge read. This one shocked and horrified me in all the best ways. The ending made me need to get up and pace for a while before I could get any sleep at all.

With remnants of a AU like The Handmaid’s Tale - this book takes you to a different world. This thriller is immersive. It leaves you wanting to read more and not able to put the book down. I would highly recommend to anyone that enjoys this type of AU.

I didn’t read too much about this book when I decided to start it. I read it all in one day! It was so interesting and I couldn’t stop until I had finished it. It reminded me a little of Hunger Games and the movie The Village. Definite must read.

This brief review (written ages after it was meant to be written) will not do this book justice. But grace knows, I've tried and tried and can't get my thoughts straight on this one.

All I've come up with is that only halfway through, this book became one of my all-time favourites, and it hit me on a visceral level from begin to end. Never in my life have I read a book that can so perfectly balance sheer brutality with near-aching beauty and tenderness. I know that there will be many people who will be able to look past the spell that this book casts and see what are likely some flaws, but for myself, I'll be eternally grateful that I could remain under that spell and experience what I believe was a changing experience in my reading life.

Thank you, Kim Liggett, and thank you to the publishers for the honour that was receiving this book.

I loved this book! It was an easy read that held my attention every second! I look forward to reading more from this author and hopefully this book wasn’t the end of the story! I rate this book a 4.8!

The Grace Year had been high on the list of books I've been needing to read and I was so happy to receive this on netgalley. The Grace Year was a fantastic read that everyone looking for a young adult thriller.

A powerful magic in the air. They exude it. They tempt with it. They could destroy our town if we let them. We must do something to rid them of this evil; to purify them and make them suitable. All females are thought to be born with this wickedness. The remedy the leaders of this county decide on, to exile them their sixteenth year, to send them far away to release their magic and return pure and ready for marriage.

The trials these young women experience during their exile is nothing short of horrifying. They are forced to protect themselves from the dangers on the outside, but mostly from the terrors that come from within.

The Grace Year by Kim Liggett was the most unexpected, surprise-favorite of the year for me. I read it based on a recommendation from a friend; going into it with no expectations. Once I started to grasp the path this book was taking, I was in shock and awe. Shock by how brilliantly crafted the story was, how cleverly it was written, and how expertly it evoked my emotions. Awe at the ability of the writer to take subject matter than infuriated me, but also made me love to read every single page until my eyes were exhausted from the strain.

The mind-blowing writing in this book is uncomparable to anything I have read before. It is beautiful, thought-provoking, haunting, and down right anguishing, all at the same time. It is multi-layered, encompassing mystery, intrigue, thrill, horror, and romance. All of these components blend together to form a story that leaves you thinking of these people, of this place, for weeks to come.

Just when you think the author is wrapping the story up in a bright red bow, the ending comes at you out of nowhere, ripping your heart out, and leaving you wondering what exactly happened. The last pages end with such uncertainty, you literally ponder it for days.

In my opinion, this book will be considered a classic. A book that everyone should read, and that all should use as a looking glass into their own hearts and beliefs. An overwhelming ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ star read, and without a doubt, my favorite book of 2019!!

Terrifying. Unlike anything I've ever read. Or in other words.... I really liked it. It was most certainly out of my comfort zone because I don't really care for dystopians anymore, but this one was ok because I got so invested in what they they thought the magic was and what it was that made this happen.

I really enjoyed this book. I loved everything about it and the writing was so good! It reminded me of The Crucible and The Fever, but even better!

Musings:

‘The Grace Year’ is a fantastic novel. Just a chef’s kiss kind of novel. It’s got everything that makes a great novel great. I had such a wonderful time reading.

What I Loved:

Darker then Dark. The girls in this novel are vicious. They are deadly. They are girls that you want to stay very far away from. Kim Ligett swing for dark and hit a home run. It’s scary how mentally these girls get so attached to believing they have magic they must purge that they turn so savage. It’s a wonder anyone survives a grace year. The whole time I kept thinking am I really reading this? Did she just tell that girl what I think she told that girl to do? Is that really what that tree is for? It’s so dark.


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Somehow the Romance manages to be adorable anyway. One light in all the dark is the love story. I loved it! Yet it’s a little bit later in the story so I don’t want to spoil anything about it. Just that it’s swoon worthy.

I didn’t know how hope could live in this world. If your a woman in this novel your life is good for either a. Being a wife b. Working terrible jobs or c. Being sent to the outskirts to be a prostitute. Also, if your husband gets tired of you he can just say that you’ve been harboring magic and then you get hung. The prospects for a woman in this book aren’t great. I was wondering for a while where the hope lied and there is hope in this novel it just took a while to get there.

It’s a nail bitter of a book. The entire time you wonder is this girl going to make it? Is it possible for her to survive the savagery of the Grace Year. It’s madness. There is no other way to describe it the Grace Year is utter madness. Getting through it with a bit of your sanity is a miracle.

I’m still thinking WTH.. I can’t get over this book really. What it says about women. What it reflects about society. How goddamn dark it was. I’m still in awe. What a fantastic book it was.


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All in all:

I highly recommend picking up a copy of The Grace Year. If you love a strong heroine with bite you’ll love this book. If you love a good dark story you’ll love this book. If you want to stare up at your ceiling wondering about life you’ll love this book. What are you doing still reading this? Go pick up this book!

Enthralling from beginning to end, I was so wrapped up in the characters, and their development throughout the story!

While I am getting some *very* strong Wilder Girls vibes from this, I think they stand apart on their own firmly.

The Grace Year gets you from the very beginning. Within the first five or six pages, I knew I wanted more. "Oh this shit is MESSED. UP." I remember thinking to myself. And while the big reveals aren't necessarily graceful (the suspense is all pretty clumsy), you will be reading late into the night to find out what happens next.

My only complaint is that so much happens the whole time. Which is why the big reveals feel so poorly handled. You hurtle through this book at breakneck speed and there is barely time to catch your breath. Before you get over one hill, you're already climbing another.

The resolution though, in the end, is beautiful. I love that Liggett could follow up if she wanted to, but I hope she doesn't. I hope she leaves us with this bittersweet ending. It fits.

3/5 stars

I went into this title with a lot of anticipation after hearing so many peers give it 5 stars! I really loved Liggett's writing style and the overall tone of this book. My main issues were with the plot and the direction it went in. Not divulging any particular issues as to not spoil it for anyone else. It got a 3 because of the writing and the subject matter; I just wanted more rebellion!

I love this book! Such strong female characters. I love the story a d the hopeful ending. I hope to read more of what happened after the women came together in support of future generations. I would also love to read about previous generations. I cant say too much without spoilers, but if you enjoy dystopian fiction, you will love this book! It is wonderful!

I have to give credit where credit is due. The whole topic was not exactly my cup of tea and will probably be the last horrific filled book that I'll be reading for a while and yet despite my desire to not want to continue reading, the author kept me going to the last page. So much kudos for the author and story writing. That's how you truly earn the 5 stars.

I don't even know where to start with this book. I'm normally not a huge YA fantasy/dystopian reader unless they came out when I was younger. I came very close to not even reading this because of how much I assumed I wouldn't even like it. Man, would that have been a HUGE mistake. I read this book in two days!!! Stayed up til 2am to finish it because I couldn't put it down.

I felt the characters and the storylines were very well written and believable. It is really hard to describe my feelings for this book without giving major plotline away so I'm just going to leave it at THIS BOOK IS A MUST READ!!!

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 (5 out of 5) This book will definitely go down as one of the best books I have read this year.

1.5 stars, rounding up. I seem to be a bit of an outlier, but I didn't like this book very much.
It had so much promise, but the writing was all over the place, starting out well and then veering too far to purple for my taste, and with some puzzling technical issues. A lot of the details make no narrative sense, the main character is a moron, and the whole thing ultimately reinforces many of the sexist beliefs that it purports to undermine. It's like fake feminism, intended not to piss off... I don't know... like, antifeminist sectarians or something.

I was drawn to this book based on the idea that it would be a thinly veiled critique of real-life society: a closed-off county transparently blaming teenage girls for their own objectification, and pitting them against each other in the wild. This would allow the exploration of relationships between the girls, and ultimately, perhaps, lead them to understand where the blame truly lies, and lead them to seek freedom elsewhere.

I must admit that, in general, I'm kind of fed up with books that show extremely, triggeringly (that is totally a word!) misogynistic societies for the sole purpose of having female characters potentially undermining them. I mean, it is 2020. Why are we still only just here? It's fantasy, all you writers; Why not fantasize a world where misogyny just doesn't exist??? But there are recent books of this "Undermine-It" ilk that I have enjoyed very much, which all had a bit more going for them besides this shared basic concept, and I was hoping this book would be one I could add to this list. Unfortunately for me -- and regardless of what the "official" description would have one believe -- this is really not that book.

One of the things that this book has going for it is that in it's particular iteration of Patriarchy, pitting women against each other is almost like a beneficial side-effect, while the main point of the “myth of magic” is the ability to blame women for men’s own worst qualities. Most of the men actually seem to believe the magic is real. Self-delusion is how they absolve themselves of their poor treatment of women, and of their sexual attraction to teenage girls. Sounds familiar! Self-delusion is how real people often absolve themselves of sexism, and this book’s world parallels that, just to an extreme degree.

Otherwise, sadly, this book does not have much else going for it. It does present a closed-off county transparently blaming teenage girls for their own objectification, but that's only the first half. The second half sees the main character, Tierney, finally sent out of her village for her Grace Year, quickly separated from the other girls and secreted away with an inappropriate man in an imbalanced romance, waffling around over whether the other female characters are worthy of saving. There's a late-stage turnaround where Tierney gains some extra understanding of the other girls, but it feels like too little too late -- especially after all that purple romance prose -- and is followed by a huge eye-roll of a conclusion. Additionally, the plot does not always follow its own narrative logic; holes abound.

I am not sorry I read this book, and a few of the images will stay with me. But I would not recommend it, ESPECIALLY not to the YA audience for whom it's intended. It is so far off the mark, I fear it would leave teen readers despairing that the only answer to overt sexist oppression is subtle sexist oppression.

This book was a mix of Lord of the Flies, Hunger Games, and The Handmaid’s Tale for me. It was disturbing but in a very entertaining, I can’t stop reading sort of way. The girls are sent away to an island for the “grace year” in order to burn out their magic and return home a year later docile wives. If they make it out alive. Tierney’s story is one of courage and strength. 4 🌟🌟🌟🌟.

Brutal and engaging, The Grace Year by Kim Liggett is one of those books I think every high school English classroom should have. I'd definitely give this book for readers looking for something fast=paced and slightly creepy.

I wasn't so sure about this book, but I ended up really liking it! While it was slow at parts, I was very invested in Tierney's story and unraveling the truth about the grace year. This book is a great conversation starter and a real thinker.