The Grace Year

Kim Liggett

YA Dystopia

No one speaks of the grace year. It’s forbidden.

In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, to drive women mad with jealousy. They believe their very skin emits a powerful aphrodisiac, the potent essence of youth, of a girl on the edge of womanhood. That’s why they’re banished for their sixteenth year, to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage. But not all of them will make it home alive.

Sixteen-year-old Tierney James dreams of a better life—a society that doesn’t pit friend against friend or woman against woman, but as her own grace year draws near, she quickly realizes that it’s not just the brutal elements they must fear. It’s not even the poachers in the woods, men who are waiting for a chance to grab one of the girls in order to make a fortune on the black market. Their greatest threat may very well be each other.

With sharp prose and gritty realism, The Grace Year examines the complex and sometimes twisted relationships between girls, the women they eventually become, and the difficult decisions they make in-between.

-Excerpt taken from Goodreads.

Check Goodreads to see the book’s ratings.

My Opinion

“That’s the problem with letting the light in— after it’s been taken away from you, it feels even darker than it was before.”

“They take everything away, our very dignity, and anything we get in return feels like a gift.”

(4 / 5) Look at me, picking up an actual book that is my choice. It wasn’t an ARC, it’s not an audio, it’s an honest to goodness book that I read just because I wanted to. 

Finding the balance of life and Bookstagram and arcs has been challenging for me but hopefully I’m figuring it out! I’ll never give up arcs (that FOMO is real people!) but I need to get back to my TBR.

This one was entertaining, it was a quick read over 2 days that kept me interested throughout. 

I ended up liking the MC even though I wasn’t sure I would. She made dumb decisions but had so much growth. Her grit to help others was admirable even when she probably shouldn’t have helped. Because of her, the women will grow leaps and bounds.

There were a few parts I didn’t love or agree with but overall it was entertainment and that’s what I was going for. And I loved the extra bit about the meanings of flowers, I’ve always found that interesting!

General content summary: minimal language, girl babies are branded with their fathers sigil, a daughter finds her father cheating (no details), sexual harassment, genitalia is removed for men of certain careers, pieces of young women are sold and eaten for medicinal purposes, a woman is sentenced to the gallows (no details of death), screaming is heard all night supposedly from someone being skinned, suicide (drowning), fingers and limbs hang from a tree, a young woman cups a young woman between her legs to see if she’s a man, many couples have been seen in a field being intimate (no details), a man pinches a young woman between her legs, bullying, a young woman is naked in front of others, scalping part of a head, a skeleton is found, a young woman dies (exposure? Starvation?), bear encounter, lightning strike, noises of a young woman being cut into pieces (multiple times), bloody injury with an axe, bloody death from blade in neck, drowning in frozen water, a young woman sees a naked man, kissing, hallucinations, menstruation, (closed door) intimacy, previously two young women kissed, a body falls and is impaled, a man is stripped and killed, intimacy (vague with no details), two people are stabbed, a throat is sliced, a man cuts a young woman’s throat, grief, unwed teen pregnancy, childbirth (few details). 

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