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onceuponanisabel's Reviews (1.48k)
This could have been interesting if it contained anything more than the events we already saw strung together with Will being scared and flashbacks of the gang playing DnD. But it wasn’t.
Oh, my word, did this book turn for me. The premise seemed really interesting, and I really enjoyed parts of it. But then, all of a sudden, I really started to dislike it.
The Grace Year is about a society in which girls are believed to gain magical abilities after puberty, and are sent away into the woods to endure the mysterious Grace Year, after which they return without powers to either marry the man who has claimed them or to be sent to the fields to work.
The book follows Tierney, who I found to be a likable enough main character for, again, about the first half of the book. She has no desire to marry and does not expect to be claimed before her Grace Year, which is exactly what she wants. However, she is unexpectedly claimed by her best friend, Michael, despite her communicating to him that she did not want to get married and that she found the idea of being claimed humiliating and sexist (which it obviously is).
Alright, so this review is going to be incredibly spoilerific, because I don't know how else to articulate the things that made me so frustrated about the book, so be warned.
1. I really liked the worldbuilding and the idea behind the story. It felt sort of like The Handmaid's Tale adapted for YA, which I enjoyed. There was sort of a mystery as to whether or not these girls actually have magic (since most of them seem to think they do) and I liked the survivalism aspect once the girls got to the Grace Year.
2. For some insane reason, this book is literally only divided into five sections. Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer, and The Return. There are no chapters. Apparently in physical ARCs, there is a little design to give a little more division. I had an eARC, and it was just continuous content. Formatting should make an attempt to make the reading experience easy for the reader, and this made it hard and frustrating.
3. Michael claiming Tierney as his wife stuck me as the kind of move that could be good or bad. And initially, it seemed like Liggett did a good job with it. Even if he was trying to save her from someone else claiming her, he was still going against her wishes himself. He was still participating in the system. Tierney makes this point both to Michael's face and in the narration, and I thought it was handled well. BUT THEN.
4.
5. The pacing of this book is just...bad. The Autumn section takes up almost half of the book, which might make sense because it includes both our introduction of Tierney's life pre-Grace Year and the claiming ceremony, on top of the first few weeks of the Grace Year. This was my favorite section. Then it goes insane. Major plot points get blasted through in a couple sentences and time passes faster and faster. I just wish it had been better balanced.
So, overall, this book could have been good. But for a book that describes itself as being like the Handmaid's Tale, it lacks all of the nuance Atwood offered. Many of the threads are just kind of discarded at the end as something for the next generation to deal with, and I was just so frustrated with so many of Liggett's decisions that I would have DNFed this book at around 75% if it hadn't been an ARC. If you're looking for another feminist dystopia as good as those name-dropped in the summary, you'll be sorely disappointed.
ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley
The Grace Year is about a society in which girls are believed to gain magical abilities after puberty, and are sent away into the woods to endure the mysterious Grace Year, after which they return without powers to either marry the man who has claimed them or to be sent to the fields to work.
The book follows Tierney, who I found to be a likable enough main character for, again, about the first half of the book. She has no desire to marry and does not expect to be claimed before her Grace Year, which is exactly what she wants. However, she is unexpectedly claimed by her best friend, Michael, despite her communicating to him that she did not want to get married and that she found the idea of being claimed humiliating and sexist (which it obviously is).
Alright, so this review is going to be incredibly spoilerific, because I don't know how else to articulate the things that made me so frustrated about the book, so be warned.
1. I really liked the worldbuilding and the idea behind the story. It felt sort of like The Handmaid's Tale adapted for YA, which I enjoyed. There was sort of a mystery as to whether or not these girls actually have magic (since most of them seem to think they do) and I liked the survivalism aspect once the girls got to the Grace Year.
2. For some insane reason, this book is literally only divided into five sections. Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer, and The Return. There are no chapters. Apparently in physical ARCs, there is a little design to give a little more division. I had an eARC, and it was just continuous content. Formatting should make an attempt to make the reading experience easy for the reader, and this made it hard and frustrating.
3. Michael claiming Tierney as his wife stuck me as the kind of move that could be good or bad. And initially, it seemed like Liggett did a good job with it. Even if he was trying to save her from someone else claiming her, he was still going against her wishes himself. He was still participating in the system. Tierney makes this point both to Michael's face and in the narration, and I thought it was handled well. BUT THEN.
Spoiler
Tierney gets back from the Grace Year pregnant with love interest 1's baby (we'll get there, I promise). Michael pulls the same shit and claims he impregnated her in their shared dreams which is obviously her magic ability, and then immediately, like five minutes later, exiles a little girl because her sister had the gall to drown, leaving her body unaccounted for. HE IS NOT A GOOD GUY. Just because he is debatably good to our main character does not mean he isn't perpetuating this violent system. And using that violent system to essentially force he girl he UNREQUITEDLY loves into marriage with him. The fact that Tierney ends up "in love" with him after several months of "marriage" made me want to pull my hair out. This fact alone would have made me drop my rating to 1 star.4.
Spoiler
Speaking of which, love interest 1. Ryker is a poacher who literally kills Grace Year girls for a living. He has no problem with this, except Tierney's father saved the life of one of his buds, so he saves her life in order to repay that debt. Aside from this GLARING character flaw, Ryker has absolutely no personality whatsoever. He "saves her life" from a situation he caused, and then keeps her drugged up and tied up in his house for weeks. Eventually, the two finally make any effort at all to communicate, and Tierney agrees to stay until she's better. At this point, there is LITERALLY A TIME JUMP and all of a sudden they're in love. Out of NOWHERE. Can you tell that this made me a tad upset? They get found out by another poacher, who tells Tierney she has to leave or he'll kill Ryker, so she goes back to the Grace Year girls, but not before spending her last night getting knocked up with Ryker's baby. Again, he makes assumptions about her, announces to others that they're together without asking, and generally doesn't respect her autonomy. Great job, feminist dystopia book.5. The pacing of this book is just...bad. The Autumn section takes up almost half of the book, which might make sense because it includes both our introduction of Tierney's life pre-Grace Year and the claiming ceremony, on top of the first few weeks of the Grace Year. This was my favorite section. Then it goes insane. Major plot points get blasted through in a couple sentences and time passes faster and faster. I just wish it had been better balanced.
So, overall, this book could have been good. But for a book that describes itself as being like the Handmaid's Tale, it lacks all of the nuance Atwood offered. Many of the threads are just kind of discarded at the end as something for the next generation to deal with, and I was just so frustrated with so many of Liggett's decisions that I would have DNFed this book at around 75% if it hadn't been an ARC. If you're looking for another feminist dystopia as good as those name-dropped in the summary, you'll be sorely disappointed.
ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley
I will say as a bit of a disclaimer that I’d watched the movie about a zillion times before I picked up the book.
Either way, I have beef with this book. The pacing is bad. There’s an entire character who exists only to be fat-shamed. The ending is highly unsatisfactory.
Either way, I have beef with this book. The pacing is bad. There’s an entire character who exists only to be fat-shamed. The ending is highly unsatisfactory.
This book kind of surprised me. I went into it looking for another hit for my magical realism addiction, but to be honest, that wasn't quite exactly what I got. But I'm not mad about it.
The Language of Cherries is the story of Evie Perez, an American girl spending the summer in Iceland with her father. Leaving behind a chaotic life in Florida, Evie discovers a local cherry orchard and befriends the woman who owns it and her jaded nephew, Oskar. Afraid to reveal his stutter, Oskar pretends he doesn't know English, and Evie begins to spill her life story to him while she paints.
The story is told in dual POVs, Evie's and Oskar's. One thing I didn't love about the book is that those POVs are told in different formats: Evie's in third-person narration and Oskar's as first-person excerpts from his journal, where he writes exclusively in freeform poems. Initially, I didn't like it. Switching perspective every chapter was jarring and I'm generally not a fan of books in verse. The poetry did grow on me by the end, but the perspective switches never stopped bothering me.
Evie and Oskar's love story was really touching and poignant, and I ended up loving it much more than I expected. This is a deceptively simple story that's kind of hard to explain because so much of it is in the atmosphere and the magic, which is what I love about magical realism.
Because Oskar refuses to speak English to Evie, their relationship takes a long, long time to go anywhere. However, that same language barrier made the telling of the story feel much more intimate, somehow. It was different and refreshing to unfold a relationship that exists so beautifully for both characters, but that they never have a single conversation about. I'm not sure it's particularly realistic or healthy, but it was lovely to read.
All in all, The Language of Cherries is a quiet book. Nothing about it felt urgent or thrilling. But honestly, I don't see that as a drawback at all. It was about beautiful art, and beautiful music, and love. Sometimes, that's enough.
ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley.
The Language of Cherries is the story of Evie Perez, an American girl spending the summer in Iceland with her father. Leaving behind a chaotic life in Florida, Evie discovers a local cherry orchard and befriends the woman who owns it and her jaded nephew, Oskar. Afraid to reveal his stutter, Oskar pretends he doesn't know English, and Evie begins to spill her life story to him while she paints.
The story is told in dual POVs, Evie's and Oskar's. One thing I didn't love about the book is that those POVs are told in different formats: Evie's in third-person narration and Oskar's as first-person excerpts from his journal, where he writes exclusively in freeform poems. Initially, I didn't like it. Switching perspective every chapter was jarring and I'm generally not a fan of books in verse. The poetry did grow on me by the end, but the perspective switches never stopped bothering me.
Evie and Oskar's love story was really touching and poignant, and I ended up loving it much more than I expected. This is a deceptively simple story that's kind of hard to explain because so much of it is in the atmosphere and the magic, which is what I love about magical realism.
Because Oskar refuses to speak English to Evie, their relationship takes a long, long time to go anywhere. However, that same language barrier made the telling of the story feel much more intimate, somehow. It was different and refreshing to unfold a relationship that exists so beautifully for both characters, but that they never have a single conversation about. I'm not sure it's particularly realistic or healthy, but it was lovely to read.
All in all, The Language of Cherries is a quiet book. Nothing about it felt urgent or thrilling. But honestly, I don't see that as a drawback at all. It was about beautiful art, and beautiful music, and love. Sometimes, that's enough.
ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley.
