The Grace Year

**3.75

Oh wow. Ok.

So that wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but I also can't say I was disappointed. I wish I knew about the romance aspect more going into it because that came as a bit of a shock but I still enjoyed that part.

The writing was definitely beautiful and you can absolutely see the author's past experience as a horror author shine through. However, some of the writing was pretty unclear. For example, Tierney would be thinking about running and it wouldn't be clear that she actually started running until a couple paragraphs later when she was already running.

Also, even though the story was in first person, it felt that we weren't really in Tierney's head. We didn't know what she was thinking a lot of the time, or at least not explicitly. It's probably just a personal choice, but I really enjoy when we know a character's plan as they're executing it and there wasn't a lot of that in this book.

(Also, even though she was clever, the main character was... just a tad dumb at points lmao)

That ending, though. Wow.

Everything about the last part, called “The Returning”, was amazing. It was a like a call-to-action and, though it was rather abrupt and I wasn't that crazy about the final line, I personally really enjoyed the vagueness of the ending. It leaves it open to interpretation.

One of my favorite quotes has to be “ She's so incredibly grateful, but she shouldn't have to feel grateful for this—for being treated like a basic human being. None of us should.”

Wow