I really wanted to get into this one but I just couldn’t! The premise was great but for some reason it didn’t hook me. I could see how this would be great for others

A haunting and powerful dystopian novel, The Meadows delivers a gripping story about control, identity, and resistance. Oakes’ prose is evocative, immersing readers in a world that feels both eerily futuristic and uncomfortably familiar. The novel’s dual timelines—Eleanor’s time in the Meadows and her life afterward—add depth, unraveling the layers of manipulation and trauma she and her peers endured.

The book’s biggest strength is its emotional core. Eleanor’s journey, particularly her relationship with Rose, is beautifully written, and the themes of queer identity, autonomy, and defiance resonate deeply. Some plot points feel a bit predictable, and the pacing lags in places, but the tension and stakes keep the story compelling.

If you enjoy dystopian fiction with The Handmaid’s Tale and Never Let Me Go vibes, this is a must-read. It’s unsettling, poignant, and ultimately hopeful—lingering long after the last page.

I received a free eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review (but it got pushed so far down my list that I ended up reading a library copy that I found falling off the shelf). I loved The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly, and I remember enjoying The Arsonist, although I do not remember one single thing about it, other than the fact that it was bonkers.

This has elements of lots of other books I like - a little Handmaid’s Tale, a touch of The Good Place…it’s not a super new spin on dystopia, but since the dystopian bubble has sort of burst, there’s not as much of a glut as there used to be, so it didn’t feel stale, if that makes sense!

Our main character is Eleanor. She grew up poor in a place called The Cove - basically a working class seaside town. But she’s accepted to The Meadows, one of the many academies where the best and brightest young people are trained. But there’s something…off about the whole place. (this is where the Good Place comparisons come in - and not just because her name is Eleanor!) Like most of Oakes’s books, the story alternates between past and present. So we see Eleanor at the Meadows, slowly starting to put the pieces together, and then we see her in the present, where she’s working as an adjudicator, interviewing “reformeds” to make sure they really are…reformed.

Eventually, the two timelines converge, and we do learn what exactly a “reformed” is. Although there’s not a ton of detail on the Before Times, we get the bare bones version - there’s something called “The Turn,” where the world basically fell apart (climate change, essentially). And in the meantime, a group called The Quorum took over. I like that the mysterious dystopian “they” at least has a name here, but they’re basically a faceless government entity. It’s somewhat obvious which side of the aisle The Quorum came from, but there’s not a great lot of detail on how that group was able to take over - basically, things were terrible, this group came in and said they could fix it…and they kinda did, so everyone is grateful and just goes along.

Like all dystopias, there’s a revolution brewing here too. We hear vague references to some kind of breakout attempt during Eleanor’s time at The Meadows, and there’s something else brewing here - people who don’t agree with the Quorum, who don’t want to hide who they are. Without giving too much away, the ending manages to walk the line between overly optimistic drivel and bleak realistic sadness. It’s a compelling read, and it makes some good points without getting overly soapboxy.

This is also, sadly, one of those books that feels like it’s taking place maybe 15 minutes in the future. You can definitely see the seeds of this stuff happening in the news right now. We’d like to think conversion therapy is a sad relic of the past, but a) it’s not, and b) even if it were, it’s the extremely recent past, so maybe let’s not get complacent about it! I liked Eleanor as a narrator, and I think the shifting timelines were enough to keep track of without adding additional narrators…but I’m always game to hear from other characters in stories like this. Even just intercalary chapters from some of the other students would have been a nice touch.

Oh my goodness I loved this book so much. The writing was absolutely beautiful. The story was breathtaking. It was was so good and devastating at the same time. This book deserves all the stars.

While the dystopian genre had become rather oversaturated and one-note for a while it has had enough of a cooling off period now to broaden and explore new avenues. This book is a part of that broadening. It's a slower-paced, more literary approach to the topic with a style reminiscent of Never Let Me Go. It's a bit meandering but worth the effort.

Wow! An incredible 5 star read! Stephanie Oakes's futuristic world was believably constructed. Chapters expertly alternated between Eleanore's current storyline and her past experiences in "the meadows" 5 years earlier, which I found especially engaging as a reader. Quoting another description/reviewer: "a queer, YA Handmaid's Tale" is especially accurate. I highly recommend this book for fans of Handmaid's Tale. A stunning work of fiction that will stick with me. Thank you NetGalley for a free ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I love cult books and this rehabilitation community felt VERY culty! I really enjoyed this book and I"m so happy I picked it up.

3.5/5 Stars

Since she was a little girl, Eleanor has been told The Meadow is a prestigious academy for "the best and brightest" After Eleanor receives her letter to The Meadow, she is ecstatic to leave her town at The Cove, but quickly discovers things aren't as they seem. Four years later, she has a government job, but is dealing with the trauma she endured in The Meadow as she tries to find the friend who disappeared.

I liked this for the most part, but do think it ended up dragging in the second half. It did pick up again in the end, but that middle portion was difficult to get through as the pacing felt very off. There is an alternating timeline between Eleanor's time at The Meadow along with after her graduation, in her first year after exiting. These switches could be a bit confusing at times. I did listen to it on audio, which made the switches a little bit easier to catch onto. It was terrifying to think about what Eleanor and the other girls went through, and to think that places like this still exist in our world today.

The Meadows by Stephanie Oakes is a captivating YA dystopian novel that will stay with you long after you finish reading. The story follows Eleanor, a young woman who escapes her harsh reality by attending The Meadows, a prestigious institution known for nurturing the "best and brightest." However, the idyllic facade of The Meadows soon crumbles as Eleanor uncovers its dark secrets.

Oakes does an excellent job of building a suspenseful atmosphere, leaving you questioning everything you thought you knew. The story tackles relevant themes like identity, societal control, and the fight for individuality. Eleanor is a relatable protagonist, and the romance between her and another student adds a layer of hope to the bleak setting.

While The Meadows might not be a light read due to its subject matter, it's a rewarding one. If you're looking for a dystopian novel with a strong female lead, a touch of romance, and a thought-provoking plot, then The Meadows is a great choice. Just be prepared for a cliffhanger ending that will leave you eager for the next book.

Thoughts and Themes: I don't know why I waited so long to read this one since I really enjoy dystopian books. For a while those books were all that I was reading. I am very glad that I decided to listen to this one since I think that it adds to the story. This is one that I really enjoyed reading during this rainy and gloomy season because that weather added to my experience.

Something that I really enjoyed from this book is the way that it makes commentary on conversion therapy. I didn't know that it was inspired by that until reading other reviews but that was something I just got from the first few minutes into the story. I thought that the author handles this topic really well and handles many of the sensitive topics throughout this story well.

Characters: In this book you get to meet our main character, Eleanor, and several of the other girls in The Meadows. I liked getting to know each of the characters better through their interactions with each other. I also really liked how some of the characters remained mysterious to us because they were mysteries to each other.

I also really liked how different the girls were from each other even when The Meadows was trying to make them carbon copies of what a women should be. I liked that a lot of the girls kept their individuality through that experience and the ways in which they managed to do this.

Writing Style: This book is written in first person through the perspective of our main character, Eleanor. I really enjoyed that we got to see everything through Eleanor's perspective. I think not hearing other people's perspectives helps to add to the story. I liked that we got to hear what Eleanor was thinking in all of the moments happening throughout the story. I also liked that when Eleanor was in the dark about things so were we.

I have not read a dystopian novel in a very long time. Once upon a time it was all I read. I was obsessed. And I’m actually sad that I stopped.

This book was really interesting and disturbing. It’s scary when you start to realize that some of this already happens.

The Meadows is truly beautiful and so heartbreaking all at once. This book is so important. While this is YA, I think it could be read by older folks too. Please look up the triggers if you need them.

I highly recommend reading this one. The audiobook was also fantastic.

The Meadows is a YA queer dystopian tale that follows Eleanor and her journey for being chosen to go The Meadows, which is one of the three schools that students are sent to for the best and brightest students. She's so thrilled to be accepted into the Meadows only to later realize that it's not what it seems.

The author explains that this story is inspired by the atrocities of conversion therapy and this book certainly highlights that with the Meadows and what they are doing with the young girls who are sent there. (trigger warnings - homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, racism, sexism, conversion therapy, murder, death of a parent)

Without giving much away with the plot, the Meadows explores so many elements of deprogramming, deconstructing, and handles sensitive topics with care while also being super engaging. The book is told in two time lines - Eleanor while she's at The Meadows and 4 years later when she is working for the Government. 👀

There is so much to packed in this story that I found it to be so thought provoking and such a great read.

This is definitely the kind of book we need right now. To see the kind of future we are headed towards, told through the perspective of a cast of relatable characters.

"The Meadows" is like a rollercoaster of emotions in book form. It's a gripping dystopian story that makes you question everything. Eleanor's journey to break free from a society obsessed with conformity is both heartbreaking and inspiring. And her love for Rose adds a layer of depth to the narrative that tugs at your heartstrings. This book is a must-read for anyone who loves thought-provoking, timely stories with a touch of romance. Trust me; it's one you won't want to miss.

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 Meadows by Stephanie Oakes

Eleanor looks forward to nothing more than her invitation to The Meadows, it’s meant for the best most promising of youth. In these times of peril, it’s an honor to attend.

When Eleanor gets there, it’s everything she dreamed; beautiful and full of girls just like her but the longer she’s there, the more she realizes that The Meadows isn’t what she thought.

This is an emotionally wrought story that felt a bit like conversion therapy meets The Handmaids Tale.

My thanks to Penguin Teen for this gifted copy.

"Friendship is really just a decision, one you make over and over again."
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This was so interesting and disturbing. It is like programming teens to be perfect housewives. They are only good as wives. Females are only accessories to better men, it feels like 100 years ago.

But there's a pattern with who they've chosen for these facilities. Also the reasoning for the downfall of the society is blaming it on race and lgbtq peoples. So now they are one race but still it doesn't seem like they are from the way they talk. They still are colonizing those that don't have white features and changing them to be more like that instead of everyone being their own.

This branched off in a few different ways that I didn't expect but was surprised by. There were so many surprises and revelations of this dystopian reality and how not everyone can just assimilate.

Reading the authors note this book was a dystopian worst case scenario about conversion therapy and although now it seems that lgbtq+ lives are being embraced and accepted. There is still a lot of hate, misinformation, and lies being told based on nothing. It seems to be easy to be brainwashed these days. Look for more than one source, look through them all and see what they are trying to tell you. Choose love and kindness. Anger and uninformed opinions are not helping anyone, especially the person who has them.

Thank you pengiun for the e-ARC for my honest and voluntary opinion.

The Meadows By Stephanie Oakes was beautifully written! A must read for anyone honestly. I would reccomend this to anyone that asks me about it.

3.5 stars rounded up

The Meadows is a queer dystopian sci-fi novel that deftly navigates difficult topics surrounding queerness, gender identity, intersectionality, and state oversight in a story reminiscent of The Handmaid's Tale where the goal is to flatten everyone into being the same and where cis, straight, whiteness is the norm. There was a lot that I liked about this conceptually, but I did think it was quite a bit longer than it needed to be and some of the sci-fi elements seem cool in theory but don't necessarily make a lot of sense. Similarly some of the specifics of how this society that is somehow anti-religion while also being deeply conservative don't make a ton of sense to me. The author discusses how this novel was inspired by what she learned about the realities of "conversion therapy" and the harm it does- that element was definitely the strongest one in the book. It does a good job of showing the different ways people might respond to this kind of attempted deprogramming and how the gaslighting might be effective in getting people to suppress who they really are. Ultimately I liked what this book was trying to do and thought it had some real strengths, but it's definitely not perfect. I received a copy of this book for review via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.

What an interesting take on a YA dystopian novel! I really loved the way this book tackled so many ideas, such as conversion therapy, mental health, queer identities, and gaslighting. While a YA novel, it also read more mature at times and I can see it being enjoyed by people of all ages. The only reason I'm not giving it five stars is because there are some minor things about the world I wish had been fleshed out a big more.