This was a tough read. As I was reading, I was getting madder and madder. This felt like dystopian But I’m a Cheerleader. Underneath it all, it was powerful. I felt for Elenor and the struggles she was fighting.
This was a different sort of dystopian book. In the future, the world has collapsed on itself. Things are different from the Before. Women are giving womanly jobs and Men are given manly jobs. Eleanor lives in the Cove with her adoptive mother. She has a crush on her friend June and longs to be with her after she returns from the Meadows. The Meadows is a facility where girls are taken to be taught to be proper women for society. They are taught how to cook, clean, and be presentable. Something shifts in Eleanor and the other girls. Why are they really there? What does needlework have to do with reconstructing society? Eleanor feels like there’s more to the story then she’s being told and she longs to know the truth about the Meadows.
We get Eleanor as our main character. From the beginning, she doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with her. She doesn’t understand why she’s at the facility to “better” herself. She meets a girl named Shelia on the first day who wants to help her remember that they are perfect the way they are. Later, Eleanor remembers a girl named Rose she had befriended and fallen for. Rose had “died” during an escape attempt. While all the reports say Rose is gone, everyone says nobody has ever died in the Meadows. What’s the truth? I liked the mix of characters here. It was obvious what was going on with Betty, and I was so sad to see she couldn’t find herself in the end. Jo was a great character, as was Marina.
The things I didn’t like about this novel was the length and the time skipping back and forth. There’s no indication that time has changed and you just have to guess. In some chapters, Eleanor is in the Meadows. In another, she is an adult dealing with life after. The twist near the end was great. The big reveals actually got me. The epilogue was very powerful and I loved Shelia’s bit. All in all, this was a book that packed a punch. In our current climate, LGBTQA+ individuals are at risk. In the near future, it could be illegal to be queer again. They could send you somewhere to fix yourself. This is a book for our time and a great eye opener.
This was a different sort of dystopian book. In the future, the world has collapsed on itself. Things are different from the Before. Women are giving womanly jobs and Men are given manly jobs. Eleanor lives in the Cove with her adoptive mother. She has a crush on her friend June and longs to be with her after she returns from the Meadows. The Meadows is a facility where girls are taken to be taught to be proper women for society. They are taught how to cook, clean, and be presentable. Something shifts in Eleanor and the other girls. Why are they really there? What does needlework have to do with reconstructing society? Eleanor feels like there’s more to the story then she’s being told and she longs to know the truth about the Meadows.
We get Eleanor as our main character. From the beginning, she doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with her. She doesn’t understand why she’s at the facility to “better” herself. She meets a girl named Shelia on the first day who wants to help her remember that they are perfect the way they are. Later, Eleanor remembers a girl named Rose she had befriended and fallen for. Rose had “died” during an escape attempt. While all the reports say Rose is gone, everyone says nobody has ever died in the Meadows. What’s the truth? I liked the mix of characters here. It was obvious what was going on with Betty, and I was so sad to see she couldn’t find herself in the end. Jo was a great character, as was Marina.
The things I didn’t like about this novel was the length and the time skipping back and forth. There’s no indication that time has changed and you just have to guess. In some chapters, Eleanor is in the Meadows. In another, she is an adult dealing with life after. The twist near the end was great. The big reveals actually got me. The epilogue was very powerful and I loved Shelia’s bit. All in all, this was a book that packed a punch. In our current climate, LGBTQA+ individuals are at risk. In the near future, it could be illegal to be queer again. They could send you somewhere to fix yourself. This is a book for our time and a great eye opener.