The Grace Year

June 10, 2019
Women are submissive, girls are pitted against each other, and misogyny is the governing principle in this heavy-handed mash-up of The Handmaid’s Tale, The Hunger Games, and Lord of the Flies. Clever narrator Tierney James lives in a community where men hold absolute power over women, who greatly outnumber them; a woman’s only value is as a wife, unmarried women are sent to workhouses and fields, and punishments (hanging, sexual slavery) are doled out on a whim. When young women turn 16, they embark on their Grace Year—banishment to an isolated compound to purify themselves of their “magic” before returning to forced marriage or work. As Tierney begins her Grace Year, she and the others must survive with few resources while poachers prowl the compound’s perimeter, hoping to rape and dismember captured girls (they’ll bottle and later sell their parts, which are believed to possess magical, medicinal powers). After Tierney is banished from the group by a cruel ringleader, she falls for a kindhearted poacher, whose interest in her threatens his position. Though the prose is evocative and the pacing well done, gratuitous violence and flimsy characters eclipse what seems like intended commentary on women’s perpetuation of misogyny. Ultimately, the many malignant forces at work in this bloody, over-the-top novel fail to become more than the sum of their parts. Ages 14–up. Agent: Joanna Volpe, New Leaf Literary & Media.