The Meadows
Sep 2023 · Penguin
4.5star
2 reviewsreport
Ebook
448
Pages
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About this ebook
"Dystopian YA at its finest." —BCCB (starred review)
"A quietly devastating book, [and] Eleanor is a protagonist like no other." —The Nerd Daily
"A story of pain, injustice, love, resistance, and hope, this glorious book will lodge inside you and make you feel everything.” —Helena Fox, award-winning author of How It Feels to Float
A queer, YA Handmaid's Tale meets Never Let Me Go about a dystopian society bent on relentless conformity, and the struggle of one girl to save herself and those she loves from a life of lies
Everyone hopes for a letter—to attend the Estuary, the Glades, the Meadows. These are the special places where only the best and brightest go to burn even brighter.
When Eleanor is accepted at the Meadows, it means escape from her hardscrabble life by the sea, in a country ravaged by climate disaster. But despite its luminous facilities, endless fields, and pretty things, the Meadows keeps dark secrets: its purpose is to reform students, to condition them against their attractions, to show them that one way of life is the only way to survive. And maybe Eleanor would believe them, except then she meets Rose.
Years later, Eleanor and her friends seem free of the Meadows, changed but not as they’d hoped. Eleanor is an adjudicator, her job to ensure her former classmates don’t stray from the lives they’ve been trained to live. But Eleanor can’t escape her past . . . or thoughts of the girl she once loved. As secrets unfurl, Eleanor must wage a dangerous battle for her own identity and the truth of what happened to the girl she lost, knowing, if she’s not careful, Rose’s fate could be her own.
A raw and timely masterwork of speculative fiction, The Meadows will sink its roots into you. This is a novel for our times and for always—not to be missed.
"In the style of Kazuo Ishiguro, details [are] dabbled out in tiny, delicious morsels . . . Superlative [and] powerful." —SLJ (starred review)
“[One of] the best YA novels hitting shelves . . . More necessary and timely than ever.” —Paste Magazine
"A profound story with fantastic writing . . . A great companion-read to classics like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid's Tale." —Teen Libriarian Toolbox
"Evocative prose and worldbuilding shot through with equal parts melancholy and hope." —PW (starred review)
“Timely and gripping, [with] a new revelation always around the corner.” —Kirkus Reviews
"Atmospheric and unsettling . . . Belongs in every collection." —Natalie C. Parker, author of the Seafire series
“Extraordinary.” —Helena Fox, author of How It Feels to Float
"A quietly devastating book, [and] Eleanor is a protagonist like no other." —The Nerd Daily
"A story of pain, injustice, love, resistance, and hope, this glorious book will lodge inside you and make you feel everything.” —Helena Fox, award-winning author of How It Feels to Float
A queer, YA Handmaid's Tale meets Never Let Me Go about a dystopian society bent on relentless conformity, and the struggle of one girl to save herself and those she loves from a life of lies
Everyone hopes for a letter—to attend the Estuary, the Glades, the Meadows. These are the special places where only the best and brightest go to burn even brighter.
When Eleanor is accepted at the Meadows, it means escape from her hardscrabble life by the sea, in a country ravaged by climate disaster. But despite its luminous facilities, endless fields, and pretty things, the Meadows keeps dark secrets: its purpose is to reform students, to condition them against their attractions, to show them that one way of life is the only way to survive. And maybe Eleanor would believe them, except then she meets Rose.
Years later, Eleanor and her friends seem free of the Meadows, changed but not as they’d hoped. Eleanor is an adjudicator, her job to ensure her former classmates don’t stray from the lives they’ve been trained to live. But Eleanor can’t escape her past . . . or thoughts of the girl she once loved. As secrets unfurl, Eleanor must wage a dangerous battle for her own identity and the truth of what happened to the girl she lost, knowing, if she’s not careful, Rose’s fate could be her own.
A raw and timely masterwork of speculative fiction, The Meadows will sink its roots into you. This is a novel for our times and for always—not to be missed.
"In the style of Kazuo Ishiguro, details [are] dabbled out in tiny, delicious morsels . . . Superlative [and] powerful." —SLJ (starred review)
“[One of] the best YA novels hitting shelves . . . More necessary and timely than ever.” —Paste Magazine
"A profound story with fantastic writing . . . A great companion-read to classics like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid's Tale." —Teen Libriarian Toolbox
"Evocative prose and worldbuilding shot through with equal parts melancholy and hope." —PW (starred review)
“Timely and gripping, [with] a new revelation always around the corner.” —Kirkus Reviews
"Atmospheric and unsettling . . . Belongs in every collection." —Natalie C. Parker, author of the Seafire series
“Extraordinary.” —Helena Fox, author of How It Feels to Float
Ratings and reviews
4.5
2 reviews
Danielle Hammelef
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September 12, 2023
This is a dystopian novel that really made me think about current society as well as both the past transgressions and hatred toward those people that "don't fit in" and the horrifying potential future if we as a society allow all our forward openminded thinking progress be stopped and turned back. I felt so many emotions reading this intense, yet slower paced novel from giddy happiness to fear and rage at how a certain group (straight men) were allowed to take control and decide what gender role
Kelsey Bickmore
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November 13, 2023
This was good but depressing. Life never is as great as it seems when one party forces its views on everyone else claiming it gives stability at the cost of freedom of choice, like the Quorum does in this book. Dystopias are always about this and that is what this is. It is good but I did have to take a break. I actually read a horror book. Funny thing is, despite the monsters and death, that book was less scary than the pervasiveness of The Meadows. You really can destroy people with soft words
About the author
Stephanie Oakes is the author of The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly, which was a Morris Award finalist and a Golden Kite Honor book, and The Arsonist, which won the Washington State Book Award and was an ALA/YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults pick. An elementary school librarian, Stephanie lives in Spokane, Washington with her wife and family.
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