young adult
In Garner County, the 16 year old girls enter their Grace
Year in an uber-patriarchal civilization. The girls are sent away into the
wilderness to find their “magic” and, if they return, they “get” to marry the
man who has claimed them. Tierney is a tomboy and not like the other Grace Year
girls. She’s not interested in marriage and has done everything she can to
avoid being claimed as a bride in order to maintain control over her own life.
The novel describes her Grace Year.
I never love the literary device of a society based on an
exaggerated policy where the reader already understands the negative
connotations of the parameters in which the characters live. It makes me feel
manipulated from the start and also makes the world described seem
unbelievable. It makes the story feel
like an exercise and largely predictable. Inevitably, with these types of
stories, the main character doesn’t want to follow the rules and the reader is
automatically on their side. The Grace Year is no exception.
This novel was so full of extremely terrible people and
situations that I just wanted to get through it for book club at first. The
morals of the story seemed obvious from the beginning (patriarchal societies
are terrible, women are people too, human rights are vital, etc.) so the
only appeal in continuing to read for me was in the wondering how Tierney would
get through the trials of the year and whether she would come to see things the
way they actually are vs. how she was raised to view the world in this
cultish lifestyle.
Surprisingly, though, it started to be not quite as
predictable around the 2/3 mark and I began to realize the larger moral which
is a more nuanced version of those I was expecting. That is, women need to stick together, to
quit cutting each other down, to quit making life a competition against each
other, to learn to collaborate and share and empathize. It’s also about the benefit of questioning
belief systems and unfair societal practices.
These are the messages which made Kim Liggett's story worthwhile. It did not end
as I expected and, for that, I also appreciated it.
The audiobook was narrated by Emily Shaffer and she did a very
good job. She had a decent voice repertoire and was a great voice actor. I give
her an A.
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