The Grace Year

Armonvuosi on dystooppinen kuvaus äärimmäisen patriarkaalisesta yhteiskunnasta, jossa naiset ovat miesten omaisuutta ja kaikin tavoin miesten vallan alaisina.

Päähenkilö Tierney on teinityttö, joka valmistautuu armonvuoteensa. Armonvuoden ajaksi naiset karkoitetaan erämaahan, jotta he voivat vapauttaa taikavoimansa turvallisesti miehiä vaarantamatta – tiedättehän, sen taikavoiman, jolla naiset voivat houkutella naimisissa olevat miehet vaimojensa parista ja saada miehet muutenkin sekaisin (kirjan maailma on totta tosiaan oikea miesasiamiesten paratiisi, jossa naisen seksuaalisuus on jokseenkin kamalinta, mitä olla voi). Ennen armonvuotta miehet ovat valinneet tyttöjen joukosta vaimot ja ne, joita ei ole valittu, joutuvat sitten palvelijoiksi fyysisiin töihin.

Armonvuodelta palaa sitten joukko nälkiintyneitä, väsyneitä, vaurioituneita naisia – ja moni jättää kokonaan palaamatta. Mitä armonvuoden aikana tapahtuu, on salaisuus, siitä ei saa puhua. On vain kuiskauksia. Tiedetään, että tyttöjä saalistetaan, mutta vaaraa tulee myös toisten tyttöjen suunnalta. Tierneylle tilanne on hankala, koska Tierney ei ole mitenkään parhaissa mahdollisissa väleissä kylän muiden tyttöjen kanssa.

Kirja kuvaa Tierneyn armonvuoden tapahtumia. Asetelmassa on paljon varsin epäuskottavia piirteitä, mutta se onnistui silti imaisemaan mukaansa. Kim Liggett kirjoittaa vauhdikkaasti ja vetävästi. Monessa kohtaa on vahvoja kuvia, jotka voisivat toimia hyvin elokuvassa – yllätys ei ollutkaan suuri, kun lopussa kiitoksissa kiiteltiin Brownstonea ja Universalia, sinne on jo elokuvaoptiot ostettu ja elokuva on käsittääkseni tulossa.

Mikäpäs tässä. Armonvuosi oli asetelmaltaan vähän uuvuttavan överiä misogyniaa, mutta oli kiinnostavaa, miten totuus armonvuodesta pikkuhiljaa valkeni Tierneylle. Kirjan viesti siitä, miten naisten keskinäisen solidaarisuuden puute osaltaan mahdollistaa ja ylläpitää patriarkaatin toimintaa on nuortenkirjalle oikein hyvä. Kirja ei todellakaan jätä epäselväksi sitä, miten miehet voittavat, jos naiset keskittyvät vain tappelemaan keskenään.

I was gripped the entire time. A complete roller-coaster going from feeling anger to fear to bliss to heart-wrenching sadness and finally to hopeful determination. The last 10 pages or so gave me goosebumps. The themes of young women discovering their “magic” in societies where they are suppressed and controlled, gave me flashbacks to reading A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. (Without the annoying tree business...) I love this book.

We all agree that this book would be so much better without romance, right?

MY HEART IS BROKEN. Review later when I can think straight again.

Ok I can update now that I have freaked out about this book to multiple friends, library patrons, and Twitter.

This book is important. Yes, you can absolutely compare it in some ways to Lord of the Flies and The Handmaid's Tale, but this is entirely its own creature. I was immediately drawn in to the strange (but eerily imaginable) world of Garner County. Normally, not having an exact time period/location wold annoy me, but this was a conscious decision that I found to be in service of the plot. The suspense and tension leading up to when the girls are sent away for their Grace Year is delightfully heart-in-mouth unbearable. And it just never stops. The only reason I didn't devour this book in one sitting is because I needed a piece to come back to the next day.

Tierney...I loved this character so much. She's not perfect, but she's strong and smart and vulnerable and passionate. I spent most of the book fearing for her life (in multiple ways) and I just can't say any more about that. The relationships between this group of girls and how they develop during the Grace Year is astounding. It felt so authentic, so tragic, and so meaningful. My mind was screaming.

There were some significant twists and turns in a meticulously tight plot. Even if I saw something coming, I was still super satisfied by how it played out. No, I didn't get everything “my way” but you know what? That's not how life works, and the book was better for it.

All in all, I found this to be a deeply impressive novel with characters that sear themselves into your heart and leave you with plenty to think about in regards to society and how we operate in that sphere. HIGHLY recommend.

The Grace Year is about how little sense patriarchy makes, and how much harm it does nevertheless. Tierney lives in a puritanical society where, it is has been decided, women are the weaker sex. Yet, the men are terrified of them. They are especially terrified of 16 year-old girls, because of the potent magic they are alleged to possess. Thus, the tradition of the Grace Year: banish the girls to the wilderness for their sixteenth year to get the magic out of their systems. Survivors return to fulfill their role as either docile wives or docile laborers.

I was on board at the beginning. Though brutal, I saw potential in the character dynamics. How Tierney distances herself from female family and peers because of her disdain for the limited options patriarchy affords her. How some women try to capitalize on patriarchal norms, only to have their efforts confined by a worldview that deems them fundamentally inferior. The need to overcome convictions that others should suffer as we have, if we ever want to create a better world for everyone.

What really knocked the wind out of my sails was not the end, but the middle. Put simply, I hated⁠—⁠—the romance. Specifically, the fact that it wasn't a romance so much as Stockholm syndrome. Some will see Tierney and Ryker as forbidden lovers, and that they are. But, more importantly, he kidnapped her! She found a drawing he made of her naked body detailing how he would slowly murder her, in order to literally profit from her remains! She wouldn't be the first teenage girl he's killed—far from it. That's his actual job. That's what he does with his time. He defends poaching and specific poachers to Tierney, including his idiot friend who thinks smallpox is an evil curse he overcame. And we're supposed to root for them to run away together because...he decided not to kill Tierney, after all? Because Ryker was killing women to provide for other women? This is all infuriating and exhausting to me. And to top it off, stale. What if we didn't romanticize men who stalk and abduct and kill? Ideally ever, but maybe especially in hard-hitting feminist YA. I don't think I'm asking too much. Here's a great video about how normalized this is. youtu.be/t8xL7w1POZ0There are some other issues I have with the general role of men in relation to Tierney, but I am tired.- - -. Extremely disappointing, to say the least. This sort of thing can ruin a would-be favorite for me. And it did just that.

DNF @ 54%. 2.5 stars.
I'm so disappointed - this was one of my most anticipated releases of the year. But I had the hardest time getting into this because I had NO backstory. How did we get here? They hint that there's places that are not like they're society.. what are they like? Why is this different? What is up with the magic? Why are their poachers? Who are they? Based on other reviews I know some of these questions get answered later on but I'm just way too confused to get into the story and honestly not enjoying my time. I see so many people are enjoying this and I can definitely see why but this was just a miss for me.

“The things we do to girls. Whether we put them on pedestals only to tear them down, or use them for parts and holes, we're all complicit in this.”

An interesting novel that doesn't live up to the hype.

Tierney, a completely bland narrator, is sent, along with all the other girls of her age, to live in the woods for a year. How this tradition came to be established is never touched upon; and no one is allowed to talk about it, which is terribly convenient from a story-telling perspective if you haven't got a rationale for your novel's premise. The pacing's solid but all the characters are like stick figures and the world-building is flimsy. Ultimately, it felt like a concept in search of a story.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press who very kindly sent me an advance review copy.