A gap year with
a difference!
This very dark,
speculative fiction novel follows a year in the life of sixteen-year-old
Tierney James.
The tradition is for the sixteen-year-old women of the village
to live in an isolated compound for a year, away from their families,
ostensibly to wear out their dangerous women’s magic (the sort that makes the
otherwise pious men do risky and sinful things – could the symbolism be any
stronger?), in order to return home to settle into their duties as wives or unwed
servants or labourers.
The tag line
reads 'No one speaks of the Grace Year, it’s forbidden.'But the girls know
that a sizeable portion of the young women fail to return and those who survive
are often disfigured in ghastly ways.
Tierney has always
been fiercely independent. As young women may get chosen to be wives in the
lead-up to the Grace Year, she has made sure that no man would pick her, as she
prefers the freedom of the unglamorous role as a labourer. But to her utter
disgust, somebody has!
Although Tierney is baffled, it is not difficult for the
reader to work out who her suitor was.
The cohort of
young women need to survive in a fort, surrounded by poachers in the woods who want
nothing better than to harvest their organs – which will then be resold to the
village as black market magical remedies. So it is in their interests to
cooperate and not get kicked out. This book reads like a cross between The Hunger Games and The Lord of the Flies.
Tierney tries
to be the voice of reason and to organise rations and a water supply. But doing
so means that she questions the very existence of their magical powers – and
quickly butts horns with the queen-bee girl. Tierney has to fight for her very
right to remain within the walls of the fort.
Never one to
accept her fate quietly, Tierney discovers some secrets and lies about not only
the Grace Year, but about the beliefs and customs of their society. She rebels
in a spectacular fashion, and in the process, reveals some confronting truths and
encourages the girls to reject the lies told to them. The ending paves the way
for a sequel.
With its
strongly feminist themes, this was the sort of book I had expected to enjoy. Instead,
the recurring motif of men controlling every aspect of the women’s lives and
valuing their bodies more than the individual person, was heavy handed. The
‘ick’ factor was upped to the max, and some of the gruesome deaths had the
effect of distancing me emotionally from the action, rather than engaging me.
Nevertheless,
an interesting concept.
Title: The Grace Year
Author: Kim Liggett
Publisher: Penguin, $32.99
Publication
Date: 19 September, 2019
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781529100594
For
ages: 14+
Type: Young Adult Fiction