A review by jenndolan
The Grace Year, by Kim Liggett
4.0
Holy moly folks! I had been hearing about The Grace Year here and there for a while and so I finally picked it up on Dec. 30th from Barnes and Noble as my official Last Read of 2019. I’m happy to say that not only did I read all 400+ pages in a single day, I got to add it to my stack of faves from 2019!
I have honestly been struggling to enjoy YA lately, and find that I finish maybe 1 out of every 10 YA books that I pick up. I picked up The Grace Year to do a bit of research for my students. I’m a high school English teacher, and when we get back from winter break, my students will start dystopian book clubs. I wanted to offer a wide variety of books, and had heard that The Grace Year was a good YA alternative for The Handmaid’s Tale, but wanted to check it out on my own before handing it to my students.
The Grace Year is a YA feminist speculative fiction that has been compared to books like The Handmaid’s Tale and Lord of the Flies. The story focuses on 16 year old Tierney James, a headstrong “tomboy” living in Garner County, where men rule with a heavy oppressive hand over the women. When the girls are 16, they are sent on their Grace Year, a 13 month period where they are sent to the woods to get rid of all of their magic before marriage so that they do not tempt men or rebel, like Eve did. In the woods, the girls face nightmarish situations, having to escape poachers - who sell the grace girls’ bodies on the black market - and one another - especially after their numbers slowly dwindle.
About 50 pages in I was entranced! I kept thinking about being a teenager and reading The Hunger Games or The City of Ember for the first time. There was something so new and fresh and exciting in reading this book. Tierney’s character is a tomboy/outcast without it being cringey. It totally deserves the comparison to The Handmaid’s Tale or Lord of the Flies, although I would definitely put this more into a “speculative” camp more than a “dystopian”. I would have liked more of an explanation of Garner County (why do people immigrate there? How long had they been like this? etc.), and more of a criticism of the girl-against-girl drama (yeah Kiersten sucked and Tierney didn’t like to hang out with them, but come on Liggett, can’t someone like Gertie do a monologue about how it’s all Garner County’s fault women hate one another!?).
Overall, 10/10 would recommend (and in fact I have already launched a “wow you should totally read this” attack on my mom & expect to wear her down any day now).
I have honestly been struggling to enjoy YA lately, and find that I finish maybe 1 out of every 10 YA books that I pick up. I picked up The Grace Year to do a bit of research for my students. I’m a high school English teacher, and when we get back from winter break, my students will start dystopian book clubs. I wanted to offer a wide variety of books, and had heard that The Grace Year was a good YA alternative for The Handmaid’s Tale, but wanted to check it out on my own before handing it to my students.
The Grace Year is a YA feminist speculative fiction that has been compared to books like The Handmaid’s Tale and Lord of the Flies. The story focuses on 16 year old Tierney James, a headstrong “tomboy” living in Garner County, where men rule with a heavy oppressive hand over the women. When the girls are 16, they are sent on their Grace Year, a 13 month period where they are sent to the woods to get rid of all of their magic before marriage so that they do not tempt men or rebel, like Eve did. In the woods, the girls face nightmarish situations, having to escape poachers - who sell the grace girls’ bodies on the black market - and one another - especially after their numbers slowly dwindle.
About 50 pages in I was entranced! I kept thinking about being a teenager and reading The Hunger Games or The City of Ember for the first time. There was something so new and fresh and exciting in reading this book. Tierney’s character is a tomboy/outcast without it being cringey. It totally deserves the comparison to The Handmaid’s Tale or Lord of the Flies, although I would definitely put this more into a “speculative” camp more than a “dystopian”. I would have liked more of an explanation of Garner County (why do people immigrate there? How long had they been like this? etc.), and more of a criticism of the girl-against-girl drama (yeah Kiersten sucked and Tierney didn’t like to hang out with them, but come on Liggett, can’t someone like Gertie do a monologue about how it’s all Garner County’s fault women hate one another!?).
Overall, 10/10 would recommend (and in fact I have already launched a “wow you should totally read this” attack on my mom & expect to wear her down any day now).