Reviews with content warning for Confinement - The Grace Year

This book follows the journey of Tiereny and depicts how she matures and adapts to the world she is in and tries to be that change that needs to happen.

Content Warnings

emilywemily6's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This book was a lot and I am still sifting through my feelings. It felt like a mix of The Handmaid’s Tale, Lord of the Flies, and The Hunger Games. This story was gruesome and the oppression the women are conditioned for within this society is horrendous. Unlike The Handmaid’s Tale, this book was more bizarre and less relatable to our current day, definitely leaning more towards horror than pure dystopian fiction. There was a lot of mystery inherent to the plot since no one in the community talks about what happens during the grace year, and I think my lack of knowledge about the book beyond the synopsis helped me enjoy the reading experience more. There were a lot of twists and turns and I really didn’t know where the book was headed! I really hated reading about the magic/madness of the girls in the enclosure and almost DNFed because I was very unsettled and frustrated with the behavior. This book was also pretty gorey. The romantic subplot was sweet and wholesome but I wanted more depth/deeper connection between the characters; they seemed to jump from trusting each other platonically to becoming intimate. The last 50 or so pages broke me. This book also uses a lot of ambiguity, which was intriguing yet sometimes frustrating. I really liked the realistic approach at the end where the girls supported each other in public for the first time, and while the world was the same, the girls and women were not. A sequel would be really fun to read to see how this world changes overtime! Revolution doesn’t happen in an instant. Lots of interesting themes that make this a great discussion book for YA and adults alike, though some of the author’s choices seemed to be more for shock value than for furthering the plot. Reading about sixteen year old girls was also not my favorite because these are the worst sixteen year old girls I have ever heard of.

Content Warnings

rachelcotter1's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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lilawsahar's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Holy shit. That was addicting.

The author writes about society that believes women have to burn off their magic at the age of 16, so they banish them to a wooded encampment. During this time, the girls have to fed for themselves for a year, but some don’t make it back alive. When in reality, this year of grace is a way for the men to break young women’s spirits, so they don’t revolting against the misogynist practices of their society.

During this year of grace, the main character discovers that the girls are slowly going mad. And she becomes banished from the group for not accepting that it’s magic. This drives her to leave the encampment and fall in love with someone who would kill her if it weren’t for a promise. The man is a poacher who is tasked with killing girls who leave the camp so they can terrorize the girls in the camp. With him, she realized the girls in the camp are going mad because where the girls drink water is a well full of poison. The society had poisoned the well, so the girls go crazy and do horrible things to believe they are the weaker sex. She goes and helps the girls wean off of well. This starts a new movement of the final year girls, where women start to silently rebelling again the misogynistic society. What a wild plot. However, I didn’t like the happy ending, but I’ve never liked where everything ends perfectly.

If you like dystopian novels, you’ll enjoy this read. This book is similar to hand maidens tale, lord of the flies, and hunger games.

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curlyewe's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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abidavisf's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Wow. The Grace Year is so powerful and heart-wrenching, just a must read for everybody, particularly women but I urge men to read this to gain this perspective.

There were so many elements of The Grace Year that took me by surprise and so many that made complete sense to me like I’d been waiting for them forever. This dystopia is so real to me. Nothing feels out of the realm of possibility and that is terrifying. I’ve only just finished listening so I can’t gather my thoughts right now but please read this book.

[Edit] I've had time now to process so here are my thoughts!

Every sentence in The Grace Year is purposeful. Everything sits just where it needs to. The premise of The Grace Year is that all sixteen-year-old girls are sent away for one year to 'rid themselves' of their 'magic'. It is evident from the start that this 'magic' is clearly the fact that the girls have gone through puberty and are now attractive to the men of their county. They must therefore be sent away so as not to 'seduce' the men. Upon their return, they are either married off to men of the county or sent to work as labourers, if no man chooses them.

It is rare for a baby boy to be born, and so not all girls will be married, making those who are chosen 'worthy' and 'superior'. It is an excellent interpretation of classism, as well as the misogyny that women can feel towards each other, having been raised to compete against each other. Yes, this is a dystopia but it feels very real.

Our protagonist, Tierney, spends large portions of the book in isolation, meaning that Kim Liggett relies on internal monologue and description to tell this story. It can be hard to feature strong character development in such tales, and yet The Grace Year does this beautifully. Every character you meet has their own journey, particularly the Grace Year girls and it is testament to Liggett's story-telling that, as a reader, you love them all, regardless of their flaws.

I truly recommend The Grace Year to everybody. If I hadn't have had work, I would have blitzed through this in a day. I can't wait to reread.

”The things we do to girls. Whether we put them on pedestals only to tear them down, or use them for parts and holes, we're all complicit in this. But everything touches everything else, and I have to believe that some good will come out of all this destruction.

Content Warnings

rinku's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

The Grace Year is honestly one of the creepiest and most intense books I’ve read in a while. Even though the world building is quite thin, what we see of the world is still terrifying enough.

I don’t want to say too much about the plot because it lives from its surprises. From the little we see from the world; the author is able to create such a tense and dark atmosphere throughout the story that you just wait for the big catastrophe to happen. In this world, women are strongly oppressed, and are only there to get married and to bear children. The men claim that women have some magic to them which makes them dangerous – those talking points reminded of how witches were described back in the times. The main character Tierney and other girls have to go and live one her aware from civilization so that they lose their supposed magic. I don’t know why but books with inevitable things like this happening just have something about them that resonate with me.

Thus, survival elements are a crucial element to the story, and they are executed so well here. They kinda reminded me of The Hunger Games, but I honestly haven’t read many survival stories besides them lmao. We see how the girls antagonize themselves and each other and we see how some of them lose their minds and start to believe the wildest things. It’s so terrible how the girls

conspire against Tierney, just as learning that the count is working together with the hunters,

and many other shocking things.

Some moments were a bit predictable, like the fact that

it was Hans or that Ryker would die

. Then again, the ending surprised me, especially that

her mother is rebelling against the system and that Tierney is pregnant

At the same time, The Grace Year is also a story about hope. Even though it takes its time, we also see solidarity between women, see how they try to find hope in this horrible world. The book shows well that the women are not inherently antagonistic to each other but the men pitting them against each other are the reason for it. This is also why I feel so ambivalent towards many characters: They treat our main character horribly, but you can still somewhat understand why they turned out the way they did. Talking about Tierney, there were some moments where I wished that she would just communicate a little bit more.

The romance is for me the weakest aspect about The Grace Year. It gives me Stockholm syndrome vibes and came too fast for my taste. But on the other side, I can understand why

Tierney fell so fast in love since it’s one of the few moments she gets a choice since all other men in her life have patronized her

Still, The Grace Year is some of the better feminist dystopian novels out there and a recommendation for everyone who likes to read about those elements.

Content Warnings

unicornofthesea's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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