The Grace Year is a dark, harrowing and extremely necessary read

The Grace Year is a harrowing dystopian tale about female rage in a world full of male oppression. Basically, it’s exactly the story we need in 2019.

It’s not an accident that some of the most affecting stories of 2019 deal with female anger and empowerment in a world that both scoffs at their pain and devalues their contributions to the world around them. Just…look around and you’ll see why.

Kim Liggett’s The Grace Year is a dystopian tale in the vein of The Power and The Handmaid’s Tale, but one that has a slightly more hopeful and activist ending than either of those two stories. It not only acknowledges the terrible nature of world these young women find themselves in, it empowers them to come together and change their fates.

(It’s that last bit I think we all really need to hear right now, just saying.)

In the world of Garner County, women are not to be trusted. They’re allowed to aspire to little beyond a life of marriage and childbirth, and if they aren’t chosen for such by a man, they’re sent to the fields and workhouses for the rest of their lives. You see, in this world, women supposedly harbor a dangerous form of magic within their very beings, one which allows them to manipulate, seduce and otherwise control men.

Therefore, when they turn sixteen, all girls are all sent off on what is known as a “grace year,” a trial of survival on a nearby island that will supposedly cleanse them and burn through their magic allowing them to return home, marry and live productive lives. No one speaks of the Grace Year, but the women who come back afterward – and note, not all of them come back – are different. Tired, scarred, tattered and changed in ways that are difficult to understand.

The Grace Year follows the story of Tierney, a smart, outdoorsy girl with little interest in becoming a wife on the eve of her Grace Year. By a trick of luck, she ends up receiving a Veil – the sign that she’ll be married when she returns, should she survive, and a twist that puts her immediately at odds with one of the most popular and influential girls in her year.

But when Tierney, along with thirty-two other girls head off into the forest together to face the unknown, each sporting a red ribbon to symbolize her state of sin, the story takes a dark and disturbing turn. Because these girls face threats from all fronts – the rough conditions of their isolated compound; the constant threat of poachers lurking in the woods, all eager to steal body parts from grace year girls; and each other.

Because as their time away continues, the grace year girls begin to turn on one another, condoning and committing horrible acts against one another in the name of power, magic, and popularity.

The novel is a non-stop read – I’m pretty sure I finished it in just over a day – full of surprising twists, horrifying moments and heartbreak. The girls, as different as they all are and as terrible as their situation is, are all relatable in their own way – even the worst of them, we understand why they behave the way they do.

It’s hard to talk about a lot of this story without giving away spoilers, but suffice it to say that even the smallest choices can change the world, and rebellions can take root with the tiniest of sparks. The Grace Year is not just an incredibly well-told tale, but an incredibly timely one, dropping as it does now, when we all need the reminder about what change really looks like.

Because as Tierney and the other girls face what the grace year really means – about themselves and the world they live in, they’ll have choices to make. About the people they are now, and the women they want to become. And no, the terrible world of Garner County won’t collapse or change overnight during the course of this story. Those things don’t happen in the real world, or this fictional one either.

But this is still a hopeful tale in the end – one that reminds us that no matter how bleak our circumstances, we have the ability to make positive changes, if only we reach out to each other.

The Grace Year is available now.