khairun_atika's review against another edition
3.0
Love is a curse in this beguiling story of familial love and the bonds that are formed when the Devonairre girls are forced to stick together due to the curse. The story is beautifully written, its prose unforgivingly honest and painful, subtly touching on the forbidden love between the characters. The highlight of the book is how the people we love can also be the people we least expect to fall in love with, and that we might misinterprete our own feelings at the end of the day.
blakehalsey's review against another edition
5.0
Corey Ann Haydu just keeps getting better and better. This book is dreamy and devastating and beautifully unique. The language is perfectly lovely and the search for and insights into love hit me right in the gut. One of my favorite reads this year, no doubt.
beaniedorman's review against another edition
4.0
This is a look at an alternate world where tragedies are remembered by the people that are lost, not the people that caused it, and the girls of Devonairre street in Brooklyn may or may not be cursed to lose anyone they fall in love with. Lorna and her group of friends do not believe in the curse, but when one of their boyfriends dies suddenly, they are forced to wonder if it is real. The aftermath delves into the anatomy of relationships--romantic or familial or friendly--and gives heartfelt, raw looks at each.
kaycee_k's review against another edition
2.0
I haven't read many Magical Realism, this is like my second/third one for my, I like this book but it fell short. I couldn't get hooked onto any of the characters, Lorna Cruz Charlotte Delilah Isla. I wanted something more from it. This book was different than what I thought it was (& that's not always bad, but I was a bit dissipated.). I didn't hate it but I just wanted more; from the characters and the world; I did enjoy the writing style of Corey Ann Haydu and will be looking out for more books by her.
It kinda felt like a draft of a book. There were something things happened out of nowhere, with no showing or telling why this changed happened. I like the book up until I hit the half mark then the book when down hill for me because of the ending.
I do have to not that I do like that way Corey played on the effect of being kids and wives to someone who died in a public way that effected the country, that's not a topic I see a lot in YA books. I enjoyed how the author played around with the troubles, problems and hard times that come with that.
Overall, I love the idea of what this story could have been, but there were something/topics that happened that should have been talked about, after they happened, not just pushed aside.
It kinda felt like a draft of a book. There were something things happened out of nowhere, with no showing or telling why this changed happened. I like the book up until I hit the half mark then the book when down hill for me because of the ending.
I do have to not that I do like that way Corey played on the effect of being kids and wives to someone who died in a public way that effected the country, that's not a topic I see a lot in YA books. I enjoyed how the author played around with the troubles, problems and hard times that come with that.
Overall, I love the idea of what this story could have been, but there were something/topics that happened that should have been talked about, after they happened, not just pushed aside.
ananthousflorist's review against another edition
1.0
This book was repetitive and difficult to understand. There was little plot, which sometimes works for me, but I didn't enjoy it here.
kim1kim2's review against another edition
4.0
I don't know how to feel about this book. Its a strange story with a strange plot and strange characters. Nothing really felt explained to me. Nothing really made sence, the street, the culture, their traditions, the world even. It felt all so fake and strange, But in an odd way I have such a clear view of all our characters, of their street of the whole world. I can picture them so well that it feels like real people. Our main character was kind of sad. She had these anoyinng moments, and it sometimes felt like she didn't had allot of feelings. Like she was sometimes kind of numb... It felt like she was depressed trough the whole book. She was kind of muted in a sort. I don't know how to describe my feelings for the character and the story... I kind of wished that the book ended differently. This book has me kind of connecting with the characters and their feelings in a weird way I don't understand. Any way maybe i'm just in a weird mood but I give this book a 4.0 stars. i will probabley change it but a 4 stars feels good.
4.0 Stars
4.0 Stars
missprint_'s review against another edition
4.0
"I've been waiting for one thing, but love can be anything."
---
"When there's nothing left to salvage, we have to save ourselves."
Everyone knows that Devonairre Street in Brooklyn is cursed. Being loved by a Devonairre Street girl ends in tragedy. Just look at the number of war widows on the street or the concentration of Affected families left without husbands and fathers after the Times Square Bombing in 2001.
Lorna Ryder and her mother have never put much stock in the curse even though they pretend to play along. Lorna celebrates a shared birthday along with Cruz, his sister Isla, Charlotte, and Delilah. She keeps her hair long and wears a key around her neck. She does everything she is supposed to just the way Angelika has advised since Lorna was a child.
But none of it seems to be enough when Delilah's boyfriend Jack is killed in the wake of the grief and confusion surrounding another terrorist attack across the country. Lorna and her friends are shocked by Jack's sudden death. Grieving and shaken, Lorna has to decide what this new loss means about the veracity of the curse and her own future as a part of Devonairre Street and away from it in The Careful Undressing of Love (2017) by Corey Ann Haydu.
The Careful Undressing of Love is Haydu's latest standalone YA novel. Lorna narrates this novel with a breezy nonchalance which soon turns to fear and doubt as everything she previously believed about love and the curse on Devonairre Street is thrown into question. The style and tone work well with Haydu's world building to create an alternate history that is simultaneously timeless and strikingly immediate.
Haydu's characters are realistically inclusive and diverse. An argument could be made that it's problematic that Delilah and Isla (the Devonairre Street girls who are not white) are the ones who suffer more over the course of this novel filled with loss and snap judgements by an insensitive public. But the same argument could be made that privilege makes this outcome sadly inevitable--a contradiction that Lorna notes herself when she begins to unpack her own privileges of being white contrasted with the burdens she has under the weight of the supposed curse and living as one of the Affected.
This story is complicated and filled with philosophical questions about grief and fear as well as love and feminism. While there is room for a bit more closure, the fate of Devonairre Street and its residents ultimately becomes irrelevant compated with Lorna's need to break away to protect herself and her own future.
A quiet, wrenching story about the bonds of love and friendship and the ways in which they can break; a commentary on the stresses and pressures of being a girl in the modern world; and a story about self-preservation first. The Careful Undressing of Love is smart and strange, frank and raw, and devastating. Highly recommended.
Possible Pairings: The Accident Season by Moïra Fowley-Doyle, The Midnight Dress by Karen Foxlee, Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman, The Truth Commission by Susan Juby, We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson, Bone Gap by Laura Ruby, Wild Swans by Jessica Spotswood, The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma, The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
You can find this review and more on my blog Miss Print
---
"When there's nothing left to salvage, we have to save ourselves."
Everyone knows that Devonairre Street in Brooklyn is cursed. Being loved by a Devonairre Street girl ends in tragedy. Just look at the number of war widows on the street or the concentration of Affected families left without husbands and fathers after the Times Square Bombing in 2001.
Lorna Ryder and her mother have never put much stock in the curse even though they pretend to play along. Lorna celebrates a shared birthday along with Cruz, his sister Isla, Charlotte, and Delilah. She keeps her hair long and wears a key around her neck. She does everything she is supposed to just the way Angelika has advised since Lorna was a child.
But none of it seems to be enough when Delilah's boyfriend Jack is killed in the wake of the grief and confusion surrounding another terrorist attack across the country. Lorna and her friends are shocked by Jack's sudden death. Grieving and shaken, Lorna has to decide what this new loss means about the veracity of the curse and her own future as a part of Devonairre Street and away from it in The Careful Undressing of Love (2017) by Corey Ann Haydu.
The Careful Undressing of Love is Haydu's latest standalone YA novel. Lorna narrates this novel with a breezy nonchalance which soon turns to fear and doubt as everything she previously believed about love and the curse on Devonairre Street is thrown into question. The style and tone work well with Haydu's world building to create an alternate history that is simultaneously timeless and strikingly immediate.
Haydu's characters are realistically inclusive and diverse. An argument could be made that it's problematic that Delilah and Isla (the Devonairre Street girls who are not white) are the ones who suffer more over the course of this novel filled with loss and snap judgements by an insensitive public. But the same argument could be made that privilege makes this outcome sadly inevitable--a contradiction that Lorna notes herself when she begins to unpack her own privileges of being white contrasted with the burdens she has under the weight of the supposed curse and living as one of the Affected.
This story is complicated and filled with philosophical questions about grief and fear as well as love and feminism. While there is room for a bit more closure, the fate of Devonairre Street and its residents ultimately becomes irrelevant compated with Lorna's need to break away to protect herself and her own future.
A quiet, wrenching story about the bonds of love and friendship and the ways in which they can break; a commentary on the stresses and pressures of being a girl in the modern world; and a story about self-preservation first. The Careful Undressing of Love is smart and strange, frank and raw, and devastating. Highly recommended.
Possible Pairings: The Accident Season by Moïra Fowley-Doyle, The Midnight Dress by Karen Foxlee, Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman, The Truth Commission by Susan Juby, We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson, Bone Gap by Laura Ruby, Wild Swans by Jessica Spotswood, The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma, The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
You can find this review and more on my blog Miss Print
readingundertheradar's review against another edition
4.0
Like 4.5 stars; loved this author's magical and lyrical prose and was fascinated by this alternative yet familiar perspective on love and grief.