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A review by serrendipity
Eventown by Corey Ann Haydu
4.0
“There’s always something worth remembering.”
Full disclosure: I did not like this book when I first started it. It’s a Middle Grade Book, and it read like a middle grade book to me. But then, after I closed the book and put it down, I found myself wanting to read more — to get back in the story. It was oddly hypnotic (?) and I think that’s a testament to the story Haydu created. Eventown was very Stepford — idyllic and pretty, but with just a whiff of something “off.”
This book reminded me a lot of The Giver — the idea that to make life better you pretty much have to forget everything which makes you unique and causes “negative” emotions. But whereas The Giver was very open-ended in its conclusion, this book was a lot more concrete and definitive. It was less a commentary on utopian society,l than it was a commentary on grief and dealing with pain and the value of memory.
It was, perhaps, a little longer than it needed to be — and the magic of the Town was never explained, not that it needed to, I guess — but I think the book, and the topics it dealt with, was powerful in its own way. I don’t think stories like this — that addressed the benefits of feeling your emotions, of remembering the bad stuff - were available when I was the age of the target audience.
Full disclosure: I did not like this book when I first started it. It’s a Middle Grade Book, and it read like a middle grade book to me. But then, after I closed the book and put it down, I found myself wanting to read more — to get back in the story. It was oddly hypnotic (?) and I think that’s a testament to the story Haydu created. Eventown was very Stepford — idyllic and pretty, but with just a whiff of something “off.”
This book reminded me a lot of The Giver — the idea that to make life better you pretty much have to forget everything which makes you unique and causes “negative” emotions. But whereas The Giver was very open-ended in its conclusion, this book was a lot more concrete and definitive. It was less a commentary on utopian society,l than it was a commentary on grief and dealing with pain and the value of memory.
It was, perhaps, a little longer than it needed to be — and the magic of the Town was never explained, not that it needed to, I guess — but I think the book, and the topics it dealt with, was powerful in its own way. I don’t think stories like this — that addressed the benefits of feeling your emotions, of remembering the bad stuff - were available when I was the age of the target audience.