The Grace Year
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4.3 • 68 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
'. . . seethes with love and brutality, violence and hope . . . a remarkable and timely story of the bonds between women' Sabaa Tahir
'An incredibly important and empowering read' Natasha Ngan
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THE RESISTANCE STARTS HERE.
No one speaks of the grace year.
It's forbidden.
We're told we have the power to lure grown men from their beds, make boys lose their minds, and drive the wives mad with jealousy. That's why we're banished for our sixteenth year, to release our magic into the wild before we're allowed to return to civilisation.
But I don't feel powerful.
I don't feel magical.
Tierney James lives in an isolated village where girls are banished at sixteen to the northern forest to brave the wilderness - and each other - for a year. They must rid themselves of their dangerous magic before returning purified and ready to marry - if they're lucky.
It is forbidden to speak of the grace year, but even so every girl knows that the coming year will change them - if they survive it...
A critically acclaimed page-turning feminist dystopia about a young woman trapped in an oppressive society, fighting to take control of her own life.
'Beautiful, devastating, and deeply moving' Samira Ahmed, New York Times bestselling author of Internment and Love, Hate & Other Filters
'A visceral, darkly haunting fever dream of a novel . . . I couldn't stop reading' Libba Bray, New York Times bestselling author of The Diviners and A Great and Terrible Beauty
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Women are submissive, girls are pitted against each other, and misogyny is the governing principle in this heavy-handed mash-up of The Handmaid's Tale, The Hunger Games, and Lord of the Flies. Clever narrator Tierney James lives in a community where men hold absolute power over women, who greatly outnumber them; a woman's only value is as a wife, unmarried women are sent to workhouses and fields, and punishments (hanging, sexual slavery) are doled out on a whim. When young women turn 16, they embark on their Grace Year banishment to an isolated compound to purify themselves of their "magic" before returning to forced marriage or work. As Tierney begins her Grace Year, she and the others must survive with few resources while poachers prowl the compound's perimeter, hoping to rape and dismember captured girls (they'll bottle and later sell their parts, which are believed to possess magical, medicinal powers). After Tierney is banished from the group by a cruel ringleader, she falls for a kindhearted poacher, whose interest in her threatens his position. Though the prose is evocative and the pacing well done, gratuitous violence and flimsy characters eclipse what seems like intended commentary on women's perpetuation of misogyny. Ultimately, the many malignant forces at work in this bloody, over-the-top novel fail to become more than the sum of their parts. Ages 14 up.
Customer Reviews
Top read
Couldn’t put this book down, great reading.
AMAZING!
A hunger games/hand maids tale hybrid.
There are no lulls in this book it is suspense the whole way through
Fantastic
The Grace Year was fantastic.
I’ve never read something so gripping, empowering and hopeful all at once. It carries so much weight and yet leaves you with so much hope. It toes the line between reality and fantasy while also being an insightful metaphor into OUR reality. I love this book, and everyone should read it!