Wednesday Books
Publication Date: October 8, 2019
For fans of The Handmaid's Tale and The Hunger Games, you’ll be obsessed with this twisted tale that keeps you on your toes the whole time. In Garber County, the Grace Year is approaching where a group of girls in their sixteenth year are banished to the outskirts. Teenage girls on the edge of womanhood are believed to be filled with aphrodisiac magic that can lure men of the town to do their bidding. The Grace Year is meant to rid the girls of their magic, so they can return to be wed as pure women.
Sixteen-year-old Tiernay James dreams of an independent life that doesn’t involve being a “wife” and where women can be friends and not be pitted against each other. As Tiernay gets ready for her Grace Year, she quickly realizes that the other young girls are not the only thing to fear out in the woods. There are male poachers in the outskirts waiting for their chance to poach a girl to sell on the black market. Throughout the next year, Tiernay not only learns more about herself, but learns that Garber County is not what it appears.
With gritty realism, The Grace Year explores feminism in the context of the relationships between women. This novel is full of symbolism and by the end will get you thinking about the role of women in our current world.
If you like The Grace Year, you will enjoy Wilder Girls by Rory Power and House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig.
-Ashleigh Edwards, Library Associate
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