The Grace Year

The Grace Year

by Kim Liggett

5 out of 5

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

Girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, 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 their chance to grab one of the girls in order to make their 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.


Review
Tierney rails against the expectations of her town, that daughters should be dutiful and women can be dangerous creatures, without men to guide them.
No one speaks of the Grace Year, when girls are sent into the woods, to expel their magic, so they can come back and serve as wives.

I received a free copy from Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Tierney has grown up with a lot of freedom, compared to some girls. She is a tomboy and has been taught to hunt and survive in the woods. She fears the mysterious Grace Year, as every year the girls come back broken, if they come back at all. Tierney wants to survive it, and go into manual labour afterwards - a step down in class, but at least she will have true freedom for the first time in her life.
She lives in a harsh world where women must be silent and obedient; and even the best wife can be put aside, if accused of witchcraft.

Tierney and the other 16 year old girls are rounded up and marched to the forest camp that will be their home for the next 12 months.
If anyone doubted the seriousness of this trial, tragedy strikes as two girls die on the way. One is killed by the hunters, who circle the girls, picking them off at any chance, so they can sell their magic-laden hair and skin to greedy medicine-makers.
The second... may or may not have been killed by the queen bee - Kiersten - and her burgeoning power.

I loved this story, with it's dark  themes and wonderful twistiness.
To start with, it reminded my of Witch Child by Celia Rees, with the strict, Puritan setting, and seeing magic in everything. The way that the patriarchy are used to ruling and will continue to keep women downtrodden. How evil is blamed, but it's rarely those that are truly evil that get punished.

It moves into Lord of the Flies territory, as these girls have to figure out how to survive; whether to work on building their own community and working together, or to embrace their magic and become gods for the year.

This story is brilliantly brutal. I loved how you're never really sure what the truth is, and even when you have answers and are surrounded by logic, there is still the whisper of magic threaded through everything.
I don't want to say anything, because every little piece builds into the wonderfully-fraught atmosphere of this book.

I was totally captivated by The Grace Year and I can't wait to read more of Liggett's work.

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