#extasia

books i read in 2024:

"extasia"

claire legrand

The Grace Year by Kim Liggett and Extasia by Claire Legrand are both distopyas dense of religious fanatism and women's segregation, in which sexism and sexual prejudice are associated with various aspects of religion (e.g. belief, faith, and fundamentalism). This novel shows also how higher religious fundamentalism is associated with internalized misogyny and passive acceptance of traditional gender roles, and both hostile and benevolent sexism.

In The Grace Year the stereotype of women as source of sin was laid down by the dominant religious authorities before the inception of widespread violence led by women against women, but after all the violence and blood, women learn the importance of sorority, female friendship and start to support and help each others.

The main source of conflicts are ribbons, which, in The Grace Year, are the sign of women's lifestage and the bride's ribbon is a valued price among most of the girls of the age of Tierney, the protagonist. The bride ribbons create a competition between girls to get bachelor’s attention, self-objectification, and humiliation toward each others. Although the competition eventually destroys most of them, this characteristic offers pleasure to those who survived their Grace Year. Tierney learns to survive on her own, learns that the religious values she was thought were wrong and learns also to appreciate her peer's friendship.

Extasia adds witchcraft and supernatural elements, but the main character (Amity) believes deeply in social conservatism—Amity has a preference for stability, conformity and the status quo— which is often a key trait of the religious experience, but also betrays deep feeling of self-hate.

In Extasia, the very patriarchal structures that decry witchcraft – the Puritan church in which the characters lives in and escapes from, the male headship to which the community so desperately cling, the insistence, in the face of repeated violence, on the sin of her mother – are the same structures that inevitably foreclose the options of the lead character, Amity.

To this two, I will mention also The Year Of The Witching by Alexis Henderson. In this novel, Immanuelle, a young woman living in a rigid, puritanical society, discovers dark powers within herself. This book is very similar to Extasia, but not such as good: Amity character is way more believable than Immanuelle and shows way more comprehension of the injustices committed in the name of the religion. The cult in Extasia contains more original elements and believing than the one in The Year Of The Witching, which seems more a copy-paste of mormon radical close-communities, including the elements of racial prejudice. Both Immanuelle and Amity live in the disdain of their own community because of the sins committed by their mother, which were both punished for their love affairs, but when Amity is a girl-of-action and actively search for mercy and witchcraft, Immanuelle is cursed - literally - by passivity and events occurs without her active consents, including the defection of the evil antagonist. Also, female friendship doesn't take place among the main themes and the book suffer a lot of the male love-interest help.

The Grace Year by Kim Liggett

No one speaks of the grace year. It’s forbidden.

In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, to drive women mad with jealousy. They believe their very skin emits a powerful aphrodisiac, the potent essence of youth, of a girl on the edge of womanhood. That’s why they’re banished for their sixteenth year, to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage. But not all of them will make it home alive.

Sixteen-year-old Tierney James dreams of a better life—a society that doesn’t pit friend against friend or woman against woman, but as her own grace year draws near, she quickly realizes that it’s not just the brutal elements they must fear. It’s not even the poachers in the woods, men who are waiting for a chance to grab one of the girls in order to make a fortune on the black market. Their greatest threat may very well be each other.

With sharp prose and gritty realism, The Grace Year examines the complex and sometimes twisted relationships between girls, the women they eventually become, and the difficult decisions they make in-between.

Extasia by Claire Legrand

Her name is unimportant.

All you must know is that today she will become one of the four saints of Haven. The elders will mark her and place the red hood on her head. With her sisters, she will stand against the evil power that lives beneath the black mountain--an evil which has already killed nine of her village's men.

She will tell no one of the white-eyed beasts that follow her. Or the faceless gray women tall as houses. Or the girls she saw kissing in the elm grove.

Today she will be a saint of Haven. She will rid her family of her mother's shame at last and save her people from destruction. She is not afraid. Are you?

The Year Of The Witching by Alexis Henderson

thanks to @cavecarrots for putting this on my feed

1. Best book you’ve read in 2024 so far?

Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas and Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

2. Best sequel you’ve read in 2024 so far?

The Wicked King by Holly Black

3. New release you haven’t read yet, but want to?

Vertigo Peaks by Dion Anja

4. Most anticipated release for the second half of 2024?

Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros (Though I still need to read Iron Flame) (not 2024 but shhhh)

5. Biggest disappointment?

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson (maybe because I read the US version)

6. Biggest surprise?

Extasia by Claire Legrand

7. New favorite author?

Holly Black, Iain Reid, Leigh Bardugo

8. New fictional crush?

LYSANDRA ENNAR ASHRYVER AND MANON BLACKBEACK 🗣️

9. Newest favorite character?

Wylan Van Eck, Nina Zenik and Tairn (yes, the dragon from Fourth Wing, he’s so sassy and I love that for him)

10. Book that made you cry?

Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas made me cry at LEAST five times.

11. Book that made you happy?

I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid (my fourth read through)

12. Favorite book-to-movie adaptation you’ve seen so far this year?

Honestly don’t have an answer to this one, I forget everything I watch within 3 days

13. What book do you really need to read by the end of this year?

books i read in 2023: extasia by claire legrand