Thanks so much to NetGalley and Dial Books for access to an eARC in exchange for my honest review!

Only the best and the brightest have a chance of receiving a letter, of being invited to study at one of the facilities. So when a letter arrives for Eleanor from the Meadows, she's as surprised as she is elated for the chance to leave home and to forge her own path. The Meadows follows Eleanor in a timeline that switches back and forth between her years in the Meadows and in her first year outside of the facility living in the city as an adjudicator monitoring other facility graduates like herself to see that they have remained on the right path.

I want to keep it brief for the summary of the book, because this book is something that both needs and deserves to be experienced the way it is written. The relationships between Eleanor and the other girls at the Meadows as well as with her neighbors, friends, and the other graduates she looks in on for work breathed so much life into the story, because at the root of it, the characters are the heart and soul of this story. They're just little girls (and boys when we meet boys from other facilities) with strong, brave hearts living in a world that wants to mold them into something they are not, into something that society expects them to be. They are Eleanor and Rose and June and Sheila and Jo and Penelope and Marina and Betty. And they are all of us, too. A world of people trying to find who we really are--who our different paper dolls are, all stacked together from past to present, and who they all come together to make when we stop trying to bury them.

The use of a dystopian setting to tell this story was perfect, in my opinion, and honestly, despite a short period in the middle of the book when the story moved a little more slowly than I would have liked, this is one of my favorite reads of the year simply for the heavy, beautiful, heartbreaking topics it tackles and how beautifully Stephanie Oakes wrote out each step of those tackles.

As a note, there are quite a few CONTENT WARNINGS to be aware of going into this one: conversion therapy, suicide, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, gaslighting, racism, cultural erasure, emotional and physical abuse, parental death, and mention of violence against peaceful protest.

"If you're not angry at the people who deserve it, you get angry at yourself."

Don't ever be angry at yourself. Direct that anger somewhere more useful. And know you're never alone. I hope that this book finds its way to everyone who needs it, and that it forces us to talk about our world and the ways that we can make it a better place to live for everyone.

The books premise is given to us as handmaids tale but make it gay. This premise works of course but felt forced and contradictory in the world building since it was made as a dystopian.

We begin in a facility where the best of girls are sent. Early on we find out it’s all the girls found to even have a hint at being gay that are sent here to be reformed as refined housewives and then forced to marry or have a job snitching on others, which is the job our main character has.

My main complaint is that I wish the past and present were specified at the start of each chapter. I had to reorient myself every time and read ahead to see which POV I was reading before actually diving in. Especially since it wouldn’t be an exact back and forth every chapter.

Now on to my world building complaint. This dystopian world just felt so forced to me. For example: this world got rid of discrimination based on race but then went on to suggest a character be more “black” to get the job? How is that not job discrimination? And yet in a world where religion is no longer a thing (good luck getting rid of Christianity unless they were the ones who died out) they are forced to suffer under the gender binary in yet another patriarchal society.

I found the main character to be quite plain and not likeable. The Meadows was probably the worst reform house Ive ever seen because they just suck at their job. It’s conversion therapy disguised as a private school. Every girl is supposedly sent to this place because they like girls but they are never even told that this is a bad thing! Multiple times girls are caught kissing and yeah they will split the couples up but then they just ignore it. Hell one of the matrons offers Eleanor to randomly come live with her?? Why?? Who the heck knows! Everyone needs to be fired and this whole world just needs redone again

The ending was good as well! This is not a kill your gays book thank god and I did love the ending turn I guess bc I didn’t like [REDACTED] LOL! We love a gay happy ending for once!

Altogether if you’re a dystopian fan then this is definitely the book for you but if the premise is what enticed you, I would say take it with a grain of salt. Be sure to check out other reviews as well as I am just one lonely reviewer in a sea of many!