It’s a good week for Kim Liggett‘s The Grace Year.
The YA novel, which takes place in a hyper-misogynistic society and follows a teen girl through a mysterious, dark tradition, isn’t hitting shelves until the fall. But after a cover and excerpt reveal earlier this week, we’re already getting adaptation news!
Universal Pictures has optioned that rights to the book and tapped actress/director Elizabeth Banks to direct and produce under her Brownstone Productions banner.
The story follows 16-year-old Tierney, who’s about to undergo the most terrifying and mysterious journey of her life: A period simply known as the grace year. No one talks about the grace year and no girl entering it knows what happens, but when it’s all over, the rest of their lives have been decided. If they survive, that is.
According to Deadline, who first reported the news, Banks is still set to also direct an adaptation of Victoria Aveyard‘s Red Queen, which has been in development for years.
We’ll keep you updated as more details arise! In the meantime, you can preorder The Grace Year now via Amazon.
No one speaks of the grace year. It’s forbidden.
Girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, 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 their chance to grab one of the girls in order to make their fortune on the black market. Their greatest threat may very well be each other.
