THE GRACE YEAR by Jihan Haji

Song "Labour" - Paris Paloma

jihanhaji1 — 2025-02-13 14:10:36 UTC

We chose this song "Labour" by Paris Paloma because it's a song that criticizes how men treat women. We feel that the song represents Tierney. We want to highlight a few quotes from the song to explain why we think it fits the book perfectly. "Emotional torture from the head of your high table" 0:32 min. This represents how society treats women. They are tortured by not being able to decide who they want to marry and how they want to live their lives. "If we had a daughter, I'd watch and could not save her" 1:56 min. This quote shows how the mothers feel about the grace year, because they want to save their daughter from what they have experienced, but they can't. This doesn't mean that only mothers have these feelings about the grace year, in our case it's Tierney with her little sisters and how Tierney feels about her older sister not being able to do her passion of gardening because she is a wife and mother who lives her life for her family. "So now I've gotta to run, so I can undo this mistake." 2:09 min. In Tierney's case, she confides to Michael that she wants to work in the fields, which he doesn't support because he thinks it's unsafe for her. He decided to "save" her by giving her a veil and "freedom". But that was the worst thing he could have done, because now she has to run to undo his mistake.

Bookcover

jihanhaji1 — 2025-02-20 13:55:04 UTC

This week we decided to change the cover to make it more appropriate for the story. In our opinion, the cover is the most important thing when buying a book. We think that the current cover doesn't attract the reader immediately, which leads to not buying the book, and that's a shame for the beautiful story. The new cover attracts more. In the centre we see the silhouette of a girl, Tierney. Her hair is tied up in a ponytail, not in a braid as it should be. This shows the freedom they only have in the year of grace. She is wearing the red ribbon that all grace Year girls have to wear. We thought it was important to show this on the cover. The flowers around her are the same ones Tierney often sees in the story. They have five petals and a deep red centre, just as described in the book. The red dust in the background represents the so-called magic that people believe the girls have during their grace year. We also changed the type font to make it more appealing.

Things Tierney did to survive the grace year up to page 205

jihanhaji1 — 2025-02-27 14:04:47 UTC

For this week's entry, we decided to make a list of the things Tierney did to survive. She comes very close to dying several times in the book and we wonder how she manages to survive her near-death experiences. We also think it shows the kind of person Tierney is, trying to help the girls and herself survive the grace year. Tierney's survival skills and willpower are astonishing. Although her skills later led the girls to turn on her because she knew too much and was accused of giving the girls chores to keep them from finding their magic.

Things Tierney did to survive the grace year up to page 205

- Built rain barrels to collect rainwater

- Built a washing station

- Used lavender and baking soda to clean the mattresses

- Gathered firewood and made a fire to cook and keep warm

- made alliances with the girls to form a bond for survival

- Used the bones from her skirts to bind the wood for the barrels.

- Taught the other girls some survival skills to maximise their chances of survival (how to cut a tree into pieces and how to split the wood into quarters with an axe).

- Built a shelter for cooking

- Tried to plant some seeds (unfortunately it didn't work)

- Rationed food to make it last longer

- Tried to stay sane and tell the other girls not to let Kiersten get to them.

- Used her knowledge of nature and what her father had taught her to make the best of the situation.

- Dived to the bottom of a pool to chase a cluster of dark shells (molluscs) so she wouldn't starve to death.

- She made a hole in the fence because she knew Hans was responsible for mending it and she hoped he would come and give her some food.

- When a bear approached and bent over her, she pretended to be dead so he wouldn't hurt her.

Letter to Tierney

2025-03-06 13:58:05 UTC

Dear Tierney

First of all, we hope this finds you well after the terrible things you've been through over the past few weeks. If we're honest, we'd probably be dead after everything that's happened. We were in complete shock when we heard about Ryker. We've always thought that poachers were miserable people, but we honestly think he's different. He doesn't sound like a bad person like all the other poachers. Because he saved you several times, threw meat over the fence and gave you lots of medicine. If we were you, we would be very grateful. But we understand that you are still suspicious. If someone had forced us to chuck that amount of liquid, we'd be suspicious too. But we guess you like him, considering you were kissing. But don't you feel sorry for Michael? We understand that Ryker is attractive, but Micheal really likes you. And have you thought about the fact that a relationship between a poacher and a prey is dangerous and can't work? But who are we to judge? Love finds its way to everyone, even if the constellation is sometimes a bit dangerous. We just wanted to say that we understand that you might be confused but just think of the consequences that could happen. We hope you are well and stay strong, you will get through this year!

Love Silja, Carla, Joanna and Jihan

This week we made some memes to describe the chapter we were reading.

jihanhaji1 — 2025-03-13 13:12:30 UTC

jihanhaji1 — 2025-03-13 13:13:29 UTC

This meme shows Tierneys choices and realtionships.

The phrase "Be safe with Micheal" represents Michael, Tierney's childhood friend who cares for her and wants to protect her. He represents the safe, predictable choice.

The phrase "Be risky with a poacher" refers to Ryker, the poacher Tierney unexpectedly falls for. Being with him is dangerous because poachers are supposed to kill grace year girls, but instead, he helps her survive. Marrying a poacher would jeopardize Tierney’s life and put her family’s safety and reputation at risk.

jihanhaji1 — 2025-03-13 13:14:35 UTC

This meme is about Tierney trying to use logic and strategy, but things don’t go as planned. She makes up ghost stories to control the girls and keep them in line, but instead of just listening, they actually start believing in the ghosts.The facepalm reaction perfectly shows how Tierney feels when her plan to keep the girls under control totally backfires.

jihanhaji1 — 2025-03-13 13:15:07 UTC

This meme shows how dealing with Kiersten is the worst kind of headache. She’s not just stressful she’s a total nightmare, always causing drama and making life harder for Tierney and the other girls.

The flowers

jihanhaji1 — 2025-03-27 13:48:49 UTC

Throughout the book, flowers are used to express feelings and the unspoken. To summarise all the flowers mentioned, we made a poster to explain the meaning of the flowers. The flowers are drawings that fit into the timeline of the book, where there were no pictures, just drawings. We know from the book that the flowers have their own language and traditions. Their meanings can be different in the current language and the old language. Some of the flowers are no longer used. What is important is that they are used for the veiling ceremony, where the suitors choose a flower to express their feelings or the relationship to the girl. The red flower at the bottom is the one that Tierney sees throughout the story and at every punishment. Tierney's mother is the one who gives the women the red flower. We didn't write a meaning because each woman interprets the flower differently and for Tierney the flower has many meanings. We left it blank so that everyone could come up with their own.

jihanhaji1 — 2025-03-27 13:49:33 UTC