Serina has been groomed her whole life to become a Grace – someone to stand by the heir to the throne as a shining, subjugated example of the perfect woman. But when her headstrong and rebellious younger sister, Nomi, catches the heir’s eye, it’s Serina who takes the fall for the dangerous secret that Nomi has been hiding.
GENRE:
Young Adult, Fantasy?
PAGES:
320 pages
PART OF A SERIES?:
1st in Grace and Fury Series
RELEASE DATE:
July 31st, 2018
PUBLISHER:
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
SOURCE:
Borrowed From Library
YOU CAN FIND THE BOOK AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE/LIBRARY OR THE FOLLOWING LINKS:
GOODREADS SUMMARY:
In a world where women have no rights, sisters Serina and Nomi Tessaro face two very different fates: one in the palace, the other in prison.
Serina has been groomed her whole life to become a Grace – someone to stand by the heir to the throne as a shining, subjugated example of the perfect woman. But when her headstrong and rebellious younger sister, Nomi, catches the heir’s eye, it’s Serina who takes the fall for the dangerous secret that Nomi has been hiding.
Now trapped in a life she never wanted, Nomi has only one way to save Serina: surrender to her role as a Grace until she can use her position to release her sister. This is easier said than done. A traitor walks the halls of the palace, and deception lurks in every corner. But Serina is running out of time, imprisoned on an island where she must fight to the death to survive and one wrong move could cost her everything
MY REVIEW
Okay, I want to talk about THREE thing when it comes to this book.
One, I LOVE LOVE LOVE how timely and perfect this book is. I kept seeing this book on the shelves and popping up on my instagram timeline and it was available through my local library’s online database and so I decided to read it. I had just finished Everless and Evermore by Sara Holland was feeling a female led fantasy. I had no idea I was getting into this female-oppressed world and I loved it. It seems so extreme – women can’t read, can’t hold certain jobs, are severely punished for really small things and so on. Some of the stories the characters told and even just the way the Superior acted just made me so sick but it felt so relevant! We have grown as a society but there are still so many men who want to hold women back and who would LOVE a society like that and I loved that Tracy created this world and I loved that she created strong characters who wanted to tear it down.
Which leads me into Two. Two, the characters in this book are SO fantastic! I am the oldest of six kids with two sisters and I’m really close to my sisters so I love a good sibling dynamic and I think you really get this in the novel with Serina and Nomi, and even their brother. The point of view switches back and forth between the two sisters and I love that you can see the connection but they both stand so strongly on their own. I love that their stories began together and are leading to one another for the second book, which I’m really excited about. I honestly really liked all of the characters, from the people that Nomi meets as a Grace and the people Serina meets on the island. There are a lot of really strong characters and I love them all.
I also love love love love both love interests. I can’t say names because that would be posting spoilers and I do not want to do that.
Which leads me into number three, (and potentially COULD be a spoiler for this book if you’ve read Red Queen and know the ending of that book) and the only reason the book gets 4.5 instead of 5 and that’s because the ending and the twist felt very, very similar to the twist at the end of Victoria Aveyard’s Red Queen. I LOVE that twist ending, I even enjoyed it the second time that I read it, but it was hard to feel so surprised at it in this book because it just felt really similar. It didn’t make me dislike the book or anything like that – I’m really interested in seeing where the series goes from there when the two groups meet at the island but it definitely didn’t have the shock impact that I think it was intended to have because it felt so similar to the ending of Red Queen.
Other than that, though, I seriously enjoyed this book and am really glad that I picked it up and am definitely anticipating the sequel releasing this year. I think that there’s a strong story, the characters are so great and the timely nature of it and the feminist feel to it is just perfect. I definitely recommend a read. Plus it reads SO fast, I blew through it!
RATING:
4.5 out of 5 Stars
*******************
Support us on Patreon for only $1 a month to gain access to monthly exclusive interviews, ARC and signed book giveaways, reviews for books I DIDN’T like and more by following the link here.
