The Graces
Ratings12
Average rating2.3
15
Ratings12
Average rating2.3
“The Graces demands to be read twice: The first time for the suspense; the second for the subtleties you missed initially.” —The New York Times Book Review Everyone loves the Graces. Fenrin, Thalia, and Summer Grace are attractive, rich, and glamorous, and they’ve cast a spell over their high school—and their entire town. They’re also rumored to have powerful connections all over the world. If you’re not in love with one of them, you want to be one of them. This is especially true for River, the new girl at school. River’s different from the rest of the horde that both revere and fear the Grace family. She’s dark, aloof, and just maybe . . . magical. And she wants to be a Grace more than anything. But what the Graces don’t know is that River’s presence in their town is no accident. The first rule of witchcraft is that if you want something bad enough, you can get it . . . no matter who has to pay. “A teenage girl becomes obsessed with a family of reputed witches . . . vivid . . . powerful.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Eve conjures up an intriguing vision of small-town mystique, with the Grace family depicted as unknowable and otherworldly—the mystery of whether magic is at play hangs over much of the story—and self-involved, obsessive River’s less-than-trustworthy narration adds to the air of uncertainty.” —Publishers Weekly
Featured Series
1 primary bookThe Graces is a 1-book series first released in 2016 with contributions by Laure Eve.
Reviews with the most likes.
I must be honest I was a little skeptical about this book, let's be honest the reviews are not exactly glowing and I very nearly switched to reading Libba Bray's The Diviners instead but something made me persevere. I'm not now quite sure what that something was after I've completed the book, maybe it was a promise of a great ending I wouldn't see coming.
This book has some elements that I can see readers would find a little trashy and tropey. We have the rich and exclusive Grace siblings, they are wealthy and beautiful and the centre of the school's gossip mill especially since people think they are witches. Enter River, the new kid in town, who is trying to throw herself into the eye line of the three Grace siblings so she can get to know more about whether all the rumours of their witchcraft is true.
One of the things I struggled most with in this book is that I didn't particularly like the main character, River. She was quite whiney and just didn't have any particular characteristics to recommend her. She just kept kind of hanging around the Grace's, creeping in and out of their house and trying to play it cool. I found her difficult to read from the perspective of and the whole hint dropping about her huge ‘secret' she was hiding just didn't add much to the story.
Taking this alongside the fact that the Grace siblings were not that likable either. As the book progressed they became less and less so and your sympathy for them wained a lot. Their blind dedication to each other regardless of the rights or wrongs of a situation made the narrative quite narrow and it meant I lacked emotional connection with many of their points of view.
I made it through this book and sometimes I'd find myself quite enjoying the characters and the journey I thought we might be going on but then the story almost began to shut itself down. I think there were storylines we didn't follow that could have been further explored and some characters were under utilised. It became a story too narrowly focused on the Grace siblings and River whereas some further context from other parties may have helped us engage more with the story on a different level.
I know The Curses is due for release at some point in the future and I may have a little bit of curiosity to see what happens next but I'm not sure I could read it unless there is some widening of the story arc to bring more depth to the story.
ondanks t wat lome begin toch een apart boek. heel vreemd. weet t niet zo goed eigenlijk.
Twilight meets The Craft. I'll give it some points for the ending not going how I thought it would, but the protagonist is so secretive and melodramatic that it was hard to feel anything for her.
The Graces was an unusual book. It's probably the best way I have to describe it, as I'm not sure I have a clue what I just read.
The book follows a teenage girl as she moves to a new school and becomes obsessed with a family called Grace, who she suspects to be witches. She is determined to become part of their inner circle, desperate for the brother to fall in love with her. In fact, I didn't feel like the main character and narrator of this book had any strong personality or direction. There didn't feel like there was any insight into her past (except brief mentions of her parents behavior which was never explained or examined). The character even remained nameless for the first portion of the book!
The Graces were interesting, but majority of them were not really given much depth. I think this book would have been a strong candidate if the characters had been fleshed out and given more aspects to make them feel 3D.
