Kelsey Quick's Reviews > The Grace Year

***Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press (Wednesday Books) for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!***


4.5 Stars rounded up.

The Grace Year follows the first person present perspective of Tierney James as she is forced not only to cope with her role in a misogynistic society, but survive the lunacy that devolves from such outlandish oppression.

This book had everything I needed to enjoy it, and it was very much a refreshing psychological read on top of the other genres. I would actually catch myself comparing it to The Mist by Stephen King, especially during the encampment scenes when Tierney was interacting with the other girls; how the true monsters can lie within ourselves if given the right concoction of trauma and circumstances.

I really enjoyed the writing. Liggett's style really reminds me of my own, and a lot of her over-arching themes for enslavement versus freedom felt eerily similar to the book I'm about to release (I think we could be friends!). Liggett's style is immersive, poetic, and rhythmic depending on the scene and how she wants you to feel at that particular moment. There was rarely a time I wanted to put the book down. Every "chapter" ending leaves the reader with a profound thought, usually short and simple—yet powerful. I loved that. It made me want to keep reading, and that's what chapter endings should do. (That being said, there were no actual chapters in the ARC, but I could tell where they were meant to be and that's what I'm going off of).

The characters are where the book fell a bit short for me. Tierney starts off largely defiant but only grows softer after each new level of abuse she takes. I found this strange, especially for a sixteen year old girl who realizes that she's dealing with people who are insane enough to kill her on a whim. (The fact that she won't lie about embracing her magic up front, but ends up doing it at the end made me want to peg her as an idiot, but I let it slide because it's evident her inconsistency on this matter was to further the plot). Tierney also plays off death like it's nothing, which is also strange for a sixteen year old girl. Whether it's killing someone, or losing someone she loves, there's no real time where we see her grieve or feel. And while that is explained away in a couple of sentences near the end, it's not very believable. Perhaps this is due to the culture she was raised in, but it made the relationship between her and those two people come out a bit shallow.

Tierney's character does change and develop, but not in the way that I think everyone was anticipating or hoping. I personally loved the ending, the twists, and all the emotional fervor in between, but I can see how some may find it lackluster, especially since Tierney spent a great deal of time talking about how she was going to devote herself—and all of her apparent rage—to her county's martyrdom. In a sense, I had to block out a small section of the end to keep enjoying it, namely from the time of Tierney's philosophical preaching to the girls less than a day after losing someone very dear to her (aka it felt very displaced, like it was the author talking to me instead of Tierney), to when Laura's little sister gets banished by "a good man." However, it didn't ruin the story for me.

Overall, this book is one you don't want to miss, despite the hiccups in characterization. The Grace Year is well-written, chilling, and creative in its exploration of how the powerful divide us to stay in power.