Publishers Weekly
10/31/2016
Lorna’s Brooklyn street is great—everyone looks out for each other, especially in hard times. But it’s also cursed: when a woman on Devonairre Street loves a man, he dies young. Lorna and her friends only half believe in this curse, even though all of their mothers are widows, but when Lorna’s best friend Delilah’s boyfriend is killed, they can’t make light of it any longer. Haydu (Making Pretty) sets this story in a slightly counterfactual version of New York City, with Times Square as Ground Zero and a lingering focus on memorializing the victims and their families, rather than a retaliatory war. Lorna’s father died in “the Bombing,” as did the father of her friend and neighbor Cruz. She was 11, he was 12, and now—nearly seven years later—their friendship is starting to feel like love. There is a lot of dramatic potential, but it never fully pays off. Is the curse real? Can it be averted? By what sacrifices? Haydu offers no answers or resolution, and after a long buildup, the ending is both sudden and unsatisfying. Ages 14–up. Agent: Victoria Marini, Irene Goodman Literary. (Jan.)
From the Publisher
"The Careful Undressing of Love is a book you relax into. For the first few pages, you’re picky, trying to sort Haydu’s magical world from our real one, and then it just takes you over. It’s weird until it’s not, and then it’s an examination of love and legacy and family, and the things girls do when we back them into corners and blame them for being there in the first place."—#1 New York Times bestselling author E. K. Johnston
"Haydu explores such themes as differingexpressions of grief, destiny versus free will, the unexamined expectation thata girl will love a boy, and the interrelation (or lack thereof ) between sex and love.The slight magical realism and parallel-world setting add to this wrenching novel’s lyricism—and make the pain somewhat easier to bear."—The Horn Book Magazine
"A carefully layered exploration of the age-old question, "Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?"—Kirkus
"Both straightforward and lyrical, this is a compelling read, a decidedly ambiguous portrayal of love that will resonate with those tired of formulaic romances."—Booklist
"Heartbreakingly beautiful and haunting, Haydu holds your heart in her hands as you travel through the pages of this story."—Romantic Times, Top Pick.
"The Careful Undressing of Love is sad and strange and beautiful. I will be marveling over Corey Ann Haydu's writing for days to come."—Johanna Albrecht, bookseller at Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, NC.
Praise for Corey Ann Haydu
★ "Haydu explores a sweet, unconventional romance alongside her characters’ well-known (but little-understood) disorder. Heartwarming, frequently funny, and wholly honest, this debut novel is, well, compulsively readable." — Horn Book, starred review of OCD Love Story
★ “Witty, affecting, and ferociously individual."
— BCCB, starred review of OCD Love Story
“Tender, wise, and heartbreakingly lovely, this story is as brilliant as a stolen star, and every bit as magical. Prepare to be enchanted.”
— Katherine Applegate, Newbery-award winning author on Rules for Stealing Stars
★ “Haydu masterfully portrays the stress of living with an alcoholic parent…. A well-crafted blend of realism and fantasy. Give to fans of Holly Goldberg Sloan’s Counting By 7s and Sarah Weeks’s So B It.”
-School Library Journal, starred review of Rules for Stealing Stars
School Library Journal
11/01/2016
Gr 9 Up—Lorna Ryder is a Devonairre Girl, identifiable by her long hair and the keys she wears around her neck. It's 2008, and she and her mother live in Brooklyn, on Devonairre Street, which has supposedly been cursed ever since World War II, when none of the street's men returned home. Women living on Devonairre are warned from childhood that loving a man or boy will doom him to an early death, and this seems to have come true for Lorna's mother as well as for the other Devonairre women who lost husbands in The Bombings, anonymous terrorist strikes on New York City much like those on 9/11. The accidental death of Jack, the boyfriend of one of the Devonairre Girls, seems only to prove the curse's validity. The young women are told that they must perform certain rituals and behave in certain ways (thus the long hair, the keys, and more) in order to mitigate the curse's effects. But as Lorna and her mother both fall in love, they begin to question whether the curse is real, and they dare to defy the expectations of how they should behave. This is an often lyrical reflection on love, sexuality, death, mourning, and how human beings attempt to rationalize and control tragic events. The elements of magical realism and the beautifully detailed descriptions of an alternate version of New York City make this a standout. VERDICT This complex novel would be a good choice for a book discussion group or for those looking for a substantive, poetic YA read.—Kathleen E. Gruver, Burlington County Library, Westampton, NJ
JUNE 2017 - AudioFile
To be loved by a Devonairre Street girl is to be sentenced to death—or so says the neighborhood curse. Narrator Julia Whelan packs emotional punches with her narration. Set in a reimagined New York City with an alternate history, the audiobook follows Lorna and her teen friends as they come of age. The small group of girls is focused on grief and made famous by its victim status. Whelen ensures that all the gasps, sobs, and heartache are heard in the emotional conversations of the teens after they lose one of their own to a sudden death. She steadies the tragic story with her strong, melodic voice as the story asks the question: Can Lorna choose between an uneventful life without love and a life punctuated by a short-lived love that is soon replaced by agony? A.L.C. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2016-10-19
Smelling of lavender tea and sporting long hair and skeleton keys around their necks, the Devonairre Street Girls have grown accustomed to the stares and whispers that follow them through the streets of New York. It's not surprising. After all, Lorna, Charlotte, Delilah, Cruz, and Isla are beautiful and different—and cursed, for legend holds that any boy who is loved by a Devonairre Street Girl will die. But it isn't until Delilah's boyfriend is suddenly killed that the curse becomes real for the girls, and for the first time, the inseparable friends must decide for themselves if they will allow it to determine their futures. Told through quiet Lorna's eyes, the lushly written first-person narrative is sensuous and rich, perfectly capturing the conflicting feelings of joy and fear that often accompany true love and meticulously laying out the peculiar terms of life on Devonairre Street. Haydu further enriches the novel with a diverse cast of compelling secondary characters, including Delilah, Lorna's African-American best friend, and their Puerto Rican friends Isla and Cruz (Charlotte is also white). However, it's the subtle yet powerful way that the novel addresses Lorna's struggle to find herself when others have defined her for so long that will especially appeal to teen readers grappling with their own issues of identity. A carefully layered exploration of the age-old question, "Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?" (Fiction. 14 & up)