A Masterful, Mystical Tale // REVIEW: The Careful Undressing Of Love by Corey Ann Haydu

Title: The Careful Undressing Of Love
Author: Corey Ann Haydu
Publication Date: January 31st 2017
Publisher: Dutton Books For Young Readers
Part of a Series?: No, A Standalone
I Got A Copy Through: Penguin Random House International (THANK YOU!)
Blurb Description: Everyone who really knows Brooklyn knows Devonairre Street girls are different. They’re the ones you shouldn’t fall in love with. The ones with the curse. The ones who can get you killed.
Lorna Ryder is a Devonairre Street girl, and for years, paying lip service to the curse has been the small price of living in a neighborhood full of memories of her father, one of the thousands killed five years earlier in the 2001 Times Square Bombing. Then her best friend’s boyfriend is killed, and suddenly a city paralyzed by dread of another terrorist attack is obsessed with Devonairre Street and the price of falling in love.
Set in an America where recent history has followed a different path.
The Careful Undressing of Love is a mystical book, filled with love and the gut wrenching pain it brings, with superstition and curses, with death and family all set on the shortest street in New York.

Devonairre Street isn’t a normal street with standard brownstones and people traversing the sidewalks. It was once where people flocked to find love; where people flocked to find love that they thought the world owed to them.

And because of it, any girl who lives on Devonairre Street today, will cause the death of the boy they love.

Lorna, Delilah, Isla and Charlotte are the Devonairre Street Girls. Apart, they’re just your regular pretty girls but together, they’re something else. They’re mystical and magical; they have long hair and keys around their necks. People stare as they walk by, and to them, the Curse is all a game.
Until the boy Delilah loves dies in a freak accident, and the lives of the girls on Devonairre Street change forever.

I didn’t know what I was expecting going in, but The Careful Undressing of Love sounded SO SO UNIQUE that I knew I had to read it anyway.

THINGS I LOVED:

1.       THE TRADITIONS: Devonairre Street has so many of these quirky traditions (is it okay to call in that?) like keys around the neck, Shared Birthdays, lemons for grief and honey cake just to name a few. It really tied in the whole element that people REALLY BELIEVED that a Curse existed, and it made the book a lot more believable in its mysticism.

2.       THE GRIEF: Whatever else I say about this book, I could feel the sadness and heartbreak wafting off the page. It was such a raw thing, so fragile and real and moving that I felt myself getting sucked and FEELING EVERYTHING in every time I read a few pages. Corey Ann’s writing was on point, making you feel it all.

3.       THE CURSE – REAL OR NOT? Normally, I would never believe that a Curse that kills the person you love existed but HOLY WOW THIS BOOK MADE ME QUESTION IT ALL. Don’t get me wrong, I still wanted to shake Angelika and Delilah and the other older ladies of Devonairre Street, but IT MADE ME QUESTION EVERYTHING.
Image result for The Careful Undressing Of Love
Gorgeous Graphic Designed by Jen @ Pop!Goes The Reader
4.       THE MEDIA FRENZY: I actually liked the media frenzy that occurred in the latter half of the book, when the article about the mysterious Devonairre Girls went viral. It gave a mystical and magical book an air of madness and utter loss of control and I REALLY REALLY LOVED IT.
I don’t think I’ve properly captured the magic that is The Careful Undressing Of Love, but I could not tell you how much you need to experience the journey that is this book.

A masterful, mystical tale about A Street, Four Girls and the love that encompasses all of us. Highly recommended!
is the author of YA novels, OCD LOVE STORYLIFE BY COMMITTEEMAKING PRETTY, the middle grade novel, RULES FOR STEALING STARS and the upcoming YA novel THE CAREFUL UNDRESSING OF LOVE. Her second middle grade novel, THE SOMEDAY SUITCASE comes out in June 2017. A graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and The New School’s Writing for Children MFA program, Corey has been working in children’s publishing since 2009.
In 2013, Corey was chosen as one of Publisher Weekly’s Flying Starts. Her books have been Junior Library Guild SelectionsIndie Next Selections, and BCCB Blue Ribbon Selections.
Have your read this book yet? What did you think of it?
Do you believe in Curses? 
What do you think of the cover of this book?
I can't wait to chat with all of you lovelies!

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