(minor spoilers)
The Grace Year is probably the best YA novel I’ve read since Sharon Cameron’s The Forgetting, with a solid cast of sympathetic characters and a truly engrossing plot. When they’re around sixteen years old, the girls of Garner County must spend a titular “grace year” living together in the middle of the woods, during which they expunge themselves of all of their magic. Because this magic is sinful: it could prevent them from fully submitting to their proper roles as wives or workers; it causes upstanding men to lust after them. And it will only grow more dangerous as they enter into adulthood if they don’t fully rid themselves of it.
But no one knows what happens during the grace year. Women are forbidden to speak of it, if they survive it. All Tierney James knows for sure is that many women do not survive, and those that come home are forever scarred by whatever happened to them, both physically and mentally.
Most girls dream of being selected to enter into marriage when they return home, but as there are far more women than there are men, the odds of that are not in Tierney’s favor. But this suits Tierney just fine; she’d rather be assigned to work in the fields where she can have a slight degree of independence. But her plans are ruined when on the night before her grace year begins, her best friend Michael gives her a veil, claiming her as his wife. The veil not only marks her as Michael’s property, it also paints a giant target on her back as she and the other girls are marched out into the woods and left entirely to their own devices.
Simply reading the summary on the book jacket gives you enough to guess where this book is going thematically. It explores the effects of systemic patriarchal oppression, and specifically the way the oppressed are incentivized to turn on each other in an attempt to gain some modicum of power. But these themes are explored with a degree of nuance I didn’t expect. I was pleasantly surprised at the level of commitment to the idea that the societal problems displayed here really are systemic; it’s not just a matter of getting the bed men out of positions of power, as is all too common in YA dystopian novels. Yes, there are some men in power who are clearly just awful people, but Tierney also learns that some men hate the way the way things are just as much as she does. That women can be kind or cruel, regardless of the level of relative privilege they come from. That there are people who live exiled from the comforts of the county and must struggle with their own completely different problems that Tierney will never have to face. That she herself is both a victim of and complicit in the harm caused by the patriarchy of Garner County.
In the end (bigger spoilers ahead, obviously), nothing really seems to have changed. Tierney doesn’t inspire a revolution; the men stay in power and she and other girls all slip into new adult roles and life goes on. And yet, everything is different. Because there’s been a revolution happening all along. Slowly, quietly, both women and men have been working toward making the kinds of incremental changes that could eventually lead to equality. Tierney’s actions over the course of the novel are the latest step toward that reality—a small step, but one that will certainly lead to further actions in the future. Ultimately, this book acknowledges that life is complicated and we can only work with the cards we’re dealt, but the important thing is that we actually do that work.
I hope I’ve managed to convey on some level the quality of the writing, because it’s good, and I think anyone who enjoys dark dystopian fantasy YA novels will likely find a new favorite in this one. So the review is done; if the premise interests you then I’d encourage you to check it out. You could stop reading here, because what follows is strictly my personal experience with this book.
But I would feel disingenuous if I didn’t admit that I hated The Grace Year.
I was entertained the whole way through; I probably would have read it all in one sitting if I’d had the time. I was thoroughly enjoying it for the first 354 pages. I will not say here what happens on page 355 that ruined everything for me. I will say that I felt so distraught and betrayed that I had to put the book down for a fit of crying, and if I weren’t so close to the end, I probably would have never picked it up again. To be clear, this was not a case of bad writing, something shocking just for the sake of shocking. Everything fit perfectly with the kind of story Liggett is telling with this book. But I was too upset to care.
What this book really taught me is that I am not in a good place right now for fiction in which bad things happen. And I’m talking about really bad things, the kind that mean the story can’t possibly give something resembling a happy ending. Because sometimes real life sucks, and fiction can be a great way to escape that for a little while, to get you outside your head long enough to remind you that life won’t suck forever. And while the pretentious part of my brain wants to scoff at the idea of literature as mere escapism, the kinder part acknowledges that escapism can actually be really good for us, sometimes even necessary. I think maybe it’s what I need right now. And maybe it’s okay for me to offer myself that grace.
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