Ali A (82 KP) rated The Meadows in Books
Sep 11, 2023
Every youth hopes to get a letter to attend one of the places where only the best and brightest go to be even better and brighter: the Estuary, the Glades, the Meadows…
When Eleanor is accepted to go to the Meadows, it means her escape from the Cove and a hard life by the sea. But, though the Meadows is filled with beautiful and wonderful things, it hoards dark secrets: its purpose is to reform its students from their attractions, to show them that the way of life is only possible through their way. Maybe Eleanor starts to believe, but then she meets Rose, and everything changes.
A year after leaving the Meadows, Eleanor and her friends are on the outside, living back in society - but not everything is as they hoped. Eleanor is an adjudicator, someone who makes sure former students haven’t strayed from the lives they were trained to live. But the past isn’t letting go of Eleanor and as secrets unravel, Eleanor must fight against everything she has been taught to be, especially if she can find the girl that she lost.
I originally was interested in this title when I saw it on BookishFirst because it was being marketed as “a queer, YA Handmaid's Tale meets Never Let Me Go” and I was all about that. I also love a good dystopian novel so this was really right up my alley.
That being said, I absolutely loved and devoured this novel over the course of the weekend when I didn’t have the interruption of work. The world building is intriguing and the “perfect” society is everything but (aren’t they all). The characters were also complex and engrossing - even the ones I wasn’t the biggest fans of, I still wanted them to succeed.
I absolutely recommend this book to those not only those who love dystopian novels, but those who want a page turning science fiction with queer characters.
*Thank you Dial Books and BookishFirst for an ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review
The Argonauts
6.0
Rate It
Book
An intrepid voyage out to the frontiers of the latest thinking about love, language, and family ...
Biography memoir social issues
The Scene of Foreplay: Theater, Labor, and Leisure in 1960s New York
Book
In a study that spans the fields of theater history, performance studies, and cultural studies,...
Speak No Evil: A Novel
10.0
Rate It
Book
On the surface, Niru leads a charmed life. Raised by two attentive parents in Washington, DC, he's a...
Bachelor Japanists: Japanese Aesthetics and Western Masculinities
Book
Challenging cliches of Japanism as a feminine taste, Bachelor Japanists argues that Japanese...
Eccentric Modernisms: Making Differences in the History of American Art
Book
"What if we ascribe significance to aesthetic and social divergences rather than waving them aside...
All Those Strangers: The Art and Lives of James Baldwin
Book
Adored by many, appalling to some, baffling still to others, few authors defy any single critical...
Beating the Graves
Book
The poems in Tsitsi Ella Jaji's Beating the Graves meditate on the meaning of living in diaspora, an...
Planetary Noise: Selected Poetry of Erin Moure
Erin Moure and Shannon Maguire
Book
Planetary Noise: Selected Poetry of Erin Moure gathers four decades of poetry from a celebrated...
Marching Dykes, Liberated Sluts, and Concerned Mothers: Women Transforming Public Space
Book
From the Women in Black vigils and Dyke marches to the Million Mom March, women have seized a...