Audiobook Review: The Grace Year by Kim Liggett

Let me start by saying this…if you’re reading this post and you haven’t read The Grace Year, stop what you’re doing and pick that book up. The Grace Year is this year’s NOT TO BE MISSED book, and not just because you’ll need to read it before the movie comes to theaters. This dark, feminist Handmaid’s Tale meets Lord of the Flies meets The Hunger Games will grip you and refuse to let you go. See why it’s in my favorites of the year!

The Grace Year

by Kim Liggett
Published by: Wednesday Books
on October 8, 2019
Genres: Young Adult, Sci-Fi, Dystopian
Pages: 416
IndieBound, Audiobook through LibroFM
Goodreads

A speculative thriller in the vein of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Power. Optioned by Universal and Elizabeth Banks to be a major motion picture!

SURVIVE THE YEAR.

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.

Review

5 brilliant stars for….

• Characters that will live in your head long past reading. The characters are distinct, complex, and imperfect. They’re also violent and a little insane; a product of their environment. 
• A world that is a fascinating character study….and not too far off from our own. The parallels, which Kim discusses in her audiobook interview, are clear. Though Kim might not look at her book as dystopia, it’s easy to connect those dots. A place where girls are sent off to fend for themselves (and often don’t make it back, whole or at all) for a year, all because men are convinced that women have magical powers that seduce them. Mhm let that sink in.
• A love triangle that isn’t actually a triangle. Kim recently spoke about creating romance in a feminist story – and how women can have both. The world in The Grace Year seeks to take away a woman’s choice in romance and Tierney finds a way to take it back. 
• The number of twists and turns and mindfuckery in the last quarter of the story. Unexpected reveals abound. I still haven’t recovered from the (good kind of) whiplash. 
• An audiobook that keeps you in the action. You’ll blink and the end has come. That’s how enthralling it is!

Get the audiobook here.

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