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4.0 AVERAGE
4.0 AVERAGE
A solid 4. I love the concept of this book, Wayward Pines vibes, without the time travel/weird evolution stuff. This made me have emotions and I was drawn completely in.
Elodee’s family faced a tragedy this year and had trouble recovering from it. Elodee is always angry and her twin sister, Naomi, is getting quieter. Given those circumstances, moving to Eventown seemed like the best plan. The family had vacationed in Eventown and had great memories of being there. When they move into their house that is just like every other house in town, they discover a life filled with hikes into the hills, no cars, walking to school past a waterfall and woods, and rosebushes everywhere. Their lives find a comforting rhythm there. But things are a bit too perfect: there are no clouds in the sky, no rainy days, and ice cream doesn’t melt down your wrists. When the twins are sent to the Welcome Center, they are given a chance to tell six stories of their lives, days of their greatest sorrows and joys. Naomi goes first and tells her stories, but Elodee’s session is interrupted. Naomi is quickly fitting into the town while Elodee remembers more of their life before and starts to ask questions about their lives in Eventown.
Haydu’s novel takes a deep look at grief and pain and its purpose in our lives. It looks at what happens when bad memories are removed and perfection is put in their place. It is a limited perfection, one with no books to read, only one song to listen to, no cell phones, no Internet and no television. It is idyllic and eerie, a Stepford version of childhood. Horror is sidestepped neatly here, instead becoming a book about empowerment and making your own choices while asking important questions.
Elodee is a great main character. The fact that she is a twin is an important element in the book as it focuses on everyone in Eventown being the same but even then Elodee and Naomi are very different from one another. The twins make an interesting counterpoint to the entire town, with Elodee and her vivid anger, big questions and willingness to be different making an ideal person to expose what is really going on.
Filled with magic and mystery, this book is a compelling look at the price of perfection. Appropriate for ages 9-12.
https://wakingbraincells.com/2019/02/04/review-eventown-by-corey-ann-haydu/
Haydu’s novel takes a deep look at grief and pain and its purpose in our lives. It looks at what happens when bad memories are removed and perfection is put in their place. It is a limited perfection, one with no books to read, only one song to listen to, no cell phones, no Internet and no television. It is idyllic and eerie, a Stepford version of childhood. Horror is sidestepped neatly here, instead becoming a book about empowerment and making your own choices while asking important questions.
Elodee is a great main character. The fact that she is a twin is an important element in the book as it focuses on everyone in Eventown being the same but even then Elodee and Naomi are very different from one another. The twins make an interesting counterpoint to the entire town, with Elodee and her vivid anger, big questions and willingness to be different making an ideal person to expose what is really going on.
Filled with magic and mystery, this book is a compelling look at the price of perfection. Appropriate for ages 9-12.
https://wakingbraincells.com/2019/02/04/review-eventown-by-corey-ann-haydu/
An entertaining middle grade reminiscent of The Giver.
I think this is a really important book. It's like the Allbright Academy but it's also - without any spoilers, it's about how important it is to have our stories of all the hard times because there's joy mixed up irrevocably with them and if you take all of it away it's just like having the same three ice cream flavors over and over with no options for new ones.
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Mixed feelings. There were many parts of this book I enjoyed, especially the baking / cooking, the importance of stories and emotions, and the way feelings were described. I’m realizing “kid who likes to make up recipes” is one of my new favorite middle grade trends. And the parts about feeling lonely / isolated within a family resonated with me.
I also enjoyed Eventown the place, probably a bit more than I was supposed to. There are parts of Eventown that I think are worth fighting for in our world - it's environmentally ideal (no cars, fresh local foods, no climate issues) with a strong education system, caring communities, and no hint of income equality. It felt sad to see this type of world depicted as dependent on the lack of diversity & innovation, or only possible if you suck out what makes life worth living. I read this as an unintentional underlying pessimism that made it hard to love the book, even though I admired some of the writing.
What a gorgeous, gorgeous book. Handles suicide in a fantastic fashion. I was a bit disappointed that Eventown didn't consist solely of a town where everything was in pairs and there were no odd things out, but that's my own fault for getting too excited over a title. Fantastic characters, really fascinating premise, and a great handling of bigger topics.
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I've been having bad luck with middle-grade fiction recently, but I was so angry a couple days ago when I picked this one up, and it felt? Like it would be good for me. And it was! I really enjoyed the magical aspects of it, and how they never really got explained. Haydu draws Naomi and Elodee's relationship very complexly, and it's extremely touching. I really enjoyed her descriptions of the physical world, which are simple yet evocative. Elodee's flavor experiments are fun and exciting and provide a lot of grounding for her excitement in the process of discovery.
I am left with a number of questions about the establishment of this town, and the magic that holds it together, but I think that was probably intentional, and it's okay to not know!
I am left with a number of questions about the establishment of this town, and the magic that holds it together, but I think that was probably intentional, and it's okay to not know!
A bit slow to start, but a beautiful story on the difficulties of grief.
An excellent meditation on the theme of emotions, how all emotions are tangled together, so that if we get rid of memories of one emotion - sadness, anger, etc- then we're getting rid of memories of other emotions at the same time, since you can have a memory that is bittersweet, both happy and sad. You can be angry and guilty at the same time, or embarrassed and proud, or many other mixes. The theme of it being better to have the memories of the things that make us sad than to not remember something is strong. I also appreciated that in a book about embracing sadness, it was clear (to me as an adult reader anyway) that Lawrence's depression is a chemical imbalance, not the result of something bad happening that is a haunting memory for him. It would have been so tempting to add that in as an argument for why they made the choice to go to Eventown, and I'm glad the author kept it to "we tried our best, he tried his best".
The characterizations were strong, and I liked in particular the way that Elodee, the narrator, came to realize that different people are brave in different ways, and that each person has a chance to step up and be brave at a different time.
The line-level writing was not stunning, but it was solidly good. I'd be interested in hearing what children thought of it. It was obvious to me as an adult by the end of the first chapter that the family had recently experienced the loss of a child, and I'd even pinned it down as an older brother fairly quickly, but it's not clear to me whether child readers were also supposed to realize this, or if it was intended as a surprise.
The casual inclusion of two moms, and the off-hand references to how Elodee thinks her sister wishes she were more normal "more like Betsy and her moms" was appreciated.
The characterizations were strong, and I liked in particular the way that Elodee, the narrator, came to realize that different people are brave in different ways, and that each person has a chance to step up and be brave at a different time.
The line-level writing was not stunning, but it was solidly good. I'd be interested in hearing what children thought of it. It was obvious to me as an adult by the end of the first chapter that the family had recently experienced the loss of a child, and I'd even pinned it down as an older brother fairly quickly, but it's not clear to me whether child readers were also supposed to realize this, or if it was intended as a surprise.
The casual inclusion of two moms, and the off-hand references to how Elodee thinks her sister wishes she were more normal "more like Betsy and her moms" was appreciated.