I think I can describe this book as an easy read that was written in the context of women's rights. It's set in a world that makes people compare it to The handmaid's Tale. But, really, I think the context is there, but nothing else is similar. Women are objects, they either work or marry someone they don't love. They're not even allowed to read, etc.
Our two main characters are Serina and Nomi. They're sisters, but they are really different. They develop as we move along the book, and change for better or worse.

It was an OK read I suppose, but nothing so different. I wish there was a bit more originality with the romance or the plot twist. The writing was also easy to get through. All in all, the book was not boring, entertaining, flowing. But, I would expect a bit more originality in the plot.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for granting a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

WOW. This book was quite something. For good and for some slightly bad reasons. Before I dive into what I didn’t like about the book, I will focus on the positives of the book.

I adored both main characters, sisters Serina and Nomi. I did favour Serina over Nomi (ever so slightly) but I was just as intrigued and in awe of both. Serina without a doubt showed a massive character development throughout. She has a fire buried deep inside of her that she, nor I, realised that Serina had. This made reading her chapters so exciting. Serina had conformed most of her life to the rules and ways that a woman should be and as the story got deeper she began to see the truth.

I loved the world and how the author made it feel believable. There was a lot of thought put into this world and I felt that the overall execution of it all worked really well.

The idea of women being told what to do, wear, say and basically how to live to grit my teeth. There were numerous times where I was so angry, I thought might throw the book across the room. But it was the perfect idea to based the story around so it was a good topic for Grace and Fury.

The pacing of the book was consisted throughout. Which basically means that this beauty never dragged. I felt so incredibly excited throughout and just had to know what was going to happen next. It was definitely one of those books that once you start it is so difficult to put down!


ARC: Grace and Fury by Tracy Banghart | Review
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I would like to thank Hodders Children’s Books and Tracy Banghart for sending me this ARC via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.


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Expected publication: July 26th 2018



Bold, brutal and beautiful, this is a must-read with the glitter and romance of The Selection and the thrilling action and intrigue of Red Queen.

In a world where women have no rights, sisters Serina and Nomi face two very different fates: one in the palace, the other on an island prison where women must fight to survive.

Serina has spent her whole life preparing to become a Grace – selected to stand by the heir to the throne as a shining example of the perfect woman.

But her headstrong and rebellious younger sister has a dangerous secret, and one wrong move could cost both sisters everything.

Can Serina fight? And will Nomi win?

WOW. This book was quite something. For good and for some slightly bad reasons. Before I dive into what I didn’t like about the book, I will focus on the positives of the book.

I adored both main characters, sisters Serina and Nomi. I did favour Serina over Nomi (ever so slightly) but I was just as intrigued and in awe of both. Serina without a doubt showed a massive character development throughout. She has a fire buried deep inside of her that she, nor I, realised that Serina had. This made reading her chapters so exciting. Serina had conformed most of her life to the rules and ways that a woman should be and as the story got deeper she began to see the truth.

I loved the world and how the author made it feel believable. There was a lot of thought put into this world and I felt that the overall execution of it all worked really well.

The idea of women being told what to do, wear, say and basically how to live to grit my teeth. There were numerous times where I was so angry, I thought might throw the book across the room. But it was the perfect idea to based the story around so it was a good topic for Grace and Fury.

The pacing of the book was consisted throughout. Which basically means that this beauty never dragged. I felt so incredibly excited throughout and just had to know what was going to happen next. It was definitely one of those books that once you start it is so difficult to put down!

happy clapping GIF by Originals

I was originally wanted to give this book 5/5 stars as I loved it so much.

There was a “big twist” towards the end of the book which left me really annoyed. This was based on the fact that it reminded me of another book, a very popular YA Dystopian book. The twist was so similar and obvious it slightly ruined my overall feeling for the book.

Don’t get me wrong. I still liked the book. Because of the ending and how so painfully similar it is to this other book I’m a tad unsure of what to make of it.

I won’t say what book I have been talking about!

Regardless of this I will be checking out the next book in the series!

3.5 stars rounded up

<i>"It isn't a choice when you don't have the freedom to say no. A yes doesn't mean the same thing when it's the only answer you're allowed!"</i>

I really liked this book. In many ways it felt like I should have loved it, and I just didn't quite. Grace and Fury had none of the issues I keep stumbling over in YA fantasy of late. The characters were well rounded. The pace was good. The narrative was engaging. The world building was sufficiently well developed. And the story makes some important points, which I'll get to in a moment.

To be honest my main issue with the book is actually clearly my problem and I can't exactly put a finger on why it's irritating me. Here it is: There's a trend in YA at present for girls in societies that oppress them while at the same time giving them damaging and narrows categories of 'virtues' to aspire too. Namely beauty and desirability. Part of the problem with this is, of course, that 'beauty' is a somewhat subjective concept. Yes you can quote the golden mean to me and you'd have a point, but aside from that, beauty and what it entails has varied so widely over the centuries that it's barely comparable with itself fro one decade to the next. In other words, it's an impossible goal set out for girls to achieve IF we consider beauty and desirability to be a list of attributes considered societally acceptable at any given time. I know why this keeps cropping up in YA books. It doesn't take a doctorate in sociology or psychology to make the link between today's media and social media, and the insidious message shoved down young people's throats as soon as their old enough to hold an Iphone. So in this context to add a world where women are completely oppressed to the point of having no opportunity to be self directing at all is very depressing. I know books reflect the time they are written in. I'm not saying the author is wrong and certainly the way she handles the quandary is laudable and intelligent. But I just keep tripping over this trope and I wish for once that showing women as being superior to their circumstances didn't need to start from a position of utter submission. Anyhoo that part of things is my issue and no reflection on the book.

There is a lot to like about this book. The relationship between the two MCs - Sisters. The realistic handling of any romance. The way the author reversed tropes and circumstances on the sisters. And the important message that wanting to be desirable is not wrong unless that is literally all you are or all you are allowed to be. There's a lot of emphasis on choice here and that's a good thing. You're not free to do something unless you are equally free not to do it. I liked the way Nomi and Serina were forced to adapt to each other's perspectives and survive in worlds neither of them was suited for. Serina rather stole the show there, while Nomi demonstrated some short sightedness that was incredibly annoying. All in all, the alternating POV chapters balanced each other well and the structure held.

What wasn't so good was that at times it felt truncated. There could have been more build up to certain events. The author might have been a little less economical with the story. The ending was brilliant but really irritating since it's a cliff hanger. I would rather this had been a 500 page standalone than cut where it was tbh.

That said I really enjoyed this and found it hard to put down. I'll definitely read the next book.

Grace and Fury is an unusual take on a couple of YA fiction's most prevalent tropes. The two sisters, Serina and Nomi, are two common archetypal characters - the beautiful sister expected to become a dutiful bride, and the plain but clever sister who sits in the background, learning what she can. Their roles are quickly subverted when Serina is imprisoned and Nomi's the one with the chance to marry into the highest echelons of society. I really enjoyed this role reversal, and it meant that both of the main characters were, from very early on, given significant opportunities to learn and grow, and break out of the roles expected of them.

The bones of the story are outlined in the synopsis above, but there's much more to the book than that. Living in the palace, Nomi's introduced to a world she's never had any interest in, and her element of the story is takes in politics, secrets, and a constant sense of disquiet. Serina, on her island prison, is thrust into a world she didn't even know existed, and literally has to fight to survive. Their storylines separate at the beginning of the book and by the end, they're starting to come back together, and I'm intrigued to see where they'll go in the sequel.

There's quite a large cast of secondary characters, ranging from the palace servants helping Nomi to the other women imprisoned with Serina on their bleak island. I felt like the other prisoners were more fleshed out characters than the palace residents and workers, but it fits with the story as Nomi is unsure of who around her she can trust, whilst Serina has to learn to rely on the women around her, at least to start, to survive in their prison. Nomi also has a romantic subplot, but although it involves a significant plot element, the romance itself is fairly minor. I do imagine though that it's going to become much more important in subsequent books, and I'll be interested to see where it goes.

Grace and Fury is a very descriptive book. From both perspectives, I really felt like I could see where the sisters were living and the people they were interacting with. For Serina in particular, surrounded by obvious and immediate danger, Banghart doesn't shy away from the brutal reality of her situation, and some of the fight scenes specifically are quite gruesome and disturbing to read (in a good way!).

Grace and Fury is a really interesting addition to the YA fantasy canon. Having the perspectives of the two sisters in such different and unexpected situations brings a great depth to the story, and I can't wait to see where the story will go next. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for some new YA fantasy with great female main characters and a gripping story.

I absolutely adored this story, the character development of both sisters is amazing to see and I love how there's an abundance of so many strong female characters in a world where women aren't allowed to be free.

I'll be updating this review with a link to my review on my site by tomorrow, I'm currently processing how I'll cope with waiting for the final in the duology!

When I started this book I had no expectations. I actually read this on my Kindle on the way to a work event, and so had no access to even the short blurb. So when this started I began to worry that this would just be a rehashing of the infamous The Selection books. I was so relieved when this book turned out to be so much more. Where The Selection focuses on the romance, this book chose the idea of sisterhood and the value of women in society. So that’s my first thought, while a lot of this book is centred around winning the hearts of various men, that’s not what this book is about.

I have read a fair few books of late that are focussed around women not having any rights, Vox, All Rights Reserved (sort of), and The Surface Breaks are among examples. Particularly in fantasy, it can be a little depressing to read books set in these kinds of worlds. I read fiction as a means of escapism and sometimes these things feel a little close to home. But I can’t judge this book based on the other books I have read, and on its own it stands pretty well. This is a world where women are basically just mothers, they are kept from reading and writing amongst other rights. The worldbuilding on this wasn’t quite as clear as I think it could have been. The focus is mostly on the reading and writing, but it would have been interesting to know how that was enforced worldwide in the story. There’s the fact that in the real world often we only know about the wealthy women who were kept from working and forced into marriage, (I’m drawing on the Greek and Roman example here because it’s what I know but there are other similar examples) while those women lower down the social hierarchy did work and did do things other than just be mothers and homemakers. I felt like I was missing the sense of different social levels. I am hoping that will be something that gets expanded on in later books in this series.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the sibling relationship in this book. I was concerned when it was set up as ‘the beautiful sister’ and ‘the adventurous sister’ that it would be fairly cliché and it would end up being the two pit against each other. While this isn’t a ‘sister power’ kind of story, the two characters are separated for most of the book, it is about women supporting one another than about being in a contest which I am here for.

It could have gone terribly wrong to have two very disparate settings, the regal court and then a volcanic island, but somehow this book feels very complete. The transitions between the two settings come at appropriate points and the balance between them is mostly pretty even. I’ll be interested to see how this changes in the sequel, will these characters suddenly have to work together or will they be divided once more?

I said this book wasn’t as romance-centred as The Selection (I feel like I’m comparing the two too much, they really aren’t similar) but there is some romance on both sides of the story. I felt this was kind of inevitable with a book like this and for the most part it’s handled pretty well. There are a few moments of ‘no stop mooning over each other people are dying’ but that’s to be expected at this point and I know some people will really enjoy the romance.

Overall my lasting impression was that this book was better than I could ever have imagined it would be from the premise and that it could be the set-up to a truly incredible sequel/series. I will certainly be looking forward to more from Tracy Banghart.

My rating: 4/5 stars.

I received a digital advanced review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

"A yes doesn't mean the same thing when it's the only answer you're allowed"

* * * *
4 / 5

Grace and Fury is everything that I wanted from The Selection and more! It's a light read, an easy page turner, and the easiest way to describe it is as having the setting of The Selection, a bunch of women are jostling to become the favoured of a prince, with the plot of Red Queen. It's a fun book with some great quotes and action moments.

"We are always supposed to give. We are never supposed to fight. Why do you think that is?"

Serina has been groomed to become a Grace - basically a woman who is part of the Prince's harem - her whole life. All her family's hopes are pinned on Serina as the one who will make it out of poverty. Everything goes wrong when it is Serina's sister Nomi that is picked by the prince over Serina herself. The problem? Nomi is a die-hard budding feminist who can think of nothing worse than to spend her days preening for a man who seems to be nothing but angry. Serina thinks her sister is an idiot who cannot accept the reality of their world, but she loves her nonetheless, which is why she takes the fall for Nomi when it turns out that Nomi can read - an illegal thing for a woman to be able to do.

To begin with, Nomi and Serina are slightly idiotic and are crammed into stereotypes: the rebel and the accepting one. But then they absolutely blossom into three-dimensional characters, particularly Serina. It's simply lovely to read. Serina is dumped in a female-only prison on a remote island and becomes part of a gang, learning to shed all the ideals that society has forced upon her about what a woman is meant to be. Nomi has to learn to quell her "don't give a toss about the consequences" attitude and to find some compassion for her fellow Graces, whilst trying to figure out exactly what is going on with the two princes.

"Serina had her beauty. Nomi had her secret."

Grace and Fury has two very separate storylines, one for each sister, each with their own action plots and twists. The ending is great - the book definitely goes out with a bang - but the twists weren't particularly surprising for me, and probably won't be for anyone who has also read Red Queen. Grace and Fury is a nice breath of fresh air in the "rebel woman" and the "princess selection" tales, bringing them together in a new way and adding in some strong themes.

My thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for an ARC of Grace and Fury.

I hate giving a book such a low mark but when you're just bored throughout the entire book...it's no use.

Grace and Fury is a book with promise and focuses on feminist themes but, for me personally, it wasn't told in a way that made me want to turn the page. I found the romance unappetizing and I wasn't really a fan of any of the characters.

However, this is a book that I feel that I may come back to in the future and try to read again.