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Eve #1
Eve
Where do you go when nowhere is safe?
Sixteen years after a deadly virus wiped out most of Earth's population, the world is a perilous place. Eighteen-year-old Eve has never been beyond the heavily guarded perimeter of her school, where she and two hundred other orphaned girls have been promised a future as the teachers and artists of the New America. But the night before graduation, Eve learns the shocking truth about her school's real purpose and the horrifying fate that awaits her.
Fleeing the only home she's ever known, Eve sets off on a long, treacherous journey, searching for a place she can survive. Along the way she encounters Arden, her former rival from school, and Caleb, a rough, rebellious boy living in the wild. Separated from men her whole life, Eve has been taught to fear them, but Caleb slowly wins her trust... and her heart. He promises to protect her, but when soldiers begin hunting them, Eve must choose between true love and her life.
In this epic new series, Anna Carey imagines a future that is both beautiful and terrifying.
Sixteen years after a deadly virus wiped out most of Earth's population, the world is a perilous place. Eighteen-year-old Eve has never been beyond the heavily guarded perimeter of her school, where she and two hundred other orphaned girls have been promised a future as the teachers and artists of the New America. But the night before graduation, Eve learns the shocking truth about her school's real purpose and the horrifying fate that awaits her.
Fleeing the only home she's ever known, Eve sets off on a long, treacherous journey, searching for a place she can survive. Along the way she encounters Arden, her former rival from school, and Caleb, a rough, rebellious boy living in the wild. Separated from men her whole life, Eve has been taught to fear them, but Caleb slowly wins her trust... and her heart. He promises to protect her, but when soldiers begin hunting them, Eve must choose between true love and her life.
In this epic new series, Anna Carey imagines a future that is both beautiful and terrifying.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published October 4, 2011
About the author
Anna Carey
19 books2,314 followersAnna Carey has been a gift wrapper, face painter, nanny, horrific cocktail waitress, sofa saleswoman and children's book editor. She graduated from New York University and has an MFA in fiction from Brooklyn College. She currently lives in Los Angeles, where she can be found writing, reading, and referencing 90s pop culture.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 3,610 reviews
December 4, 2011
Instant Dystopia: Now With 50% Less Logic!
Start with your randomly selected future date at room temperature. Add an ambiguous Plague (capitalised is best). Stir briefly to create a drastic population reduction, thereby ensuring wombs are a hot commodity in your new society. Heavily indoctrinate your characters to keep them in line and create exploitative scenarios, especially for teenagers. Insert an Improbable and Unexplained System of Government.
Got Plausibility Problems? Just add Romance! (Instant or QuickLuv is recommended). Sprinkle with Yearning Gazes, Electrifying Touches and Heaving Breaths to taste. Season liberally with Tension, or better yet, add Love Triangle and bring to the boil.
Insert Cliffhanger.
Huzzah! You have an Instant Dystopia! Plate up with a pretty cover (Shiny Locks and Flowing Dress optional). Serve while this trend is still hot!
~
Oh, Eve. Where do I start?
Despite a promising, albeit somewhat unoriginal, premise – it all went horribly wrong for me when Eve climbed aboard the Trope Train and didn’t know when to get off. Rushing straight past the stops of “frighteningly plausible” and “sound world building”, Eve charges down the well-travelled tracks of tru luv, flimsy backstory and convenient yet improbable scenarios. Throw in a thoroughly unsympathetic heroine and a head-desk inducing cliffhanger, and the resultant wreck claimed a few rating stars as casualties, along with my interest in reading the sequel.
One of the major issues I had with this book (I’ll get to the biggest in a minute) was the version of a “dystopian” world Carey presents. The scaffolding holding this world up was simply too rickety to stand up under questioning. We’re presented with an unexplained plague that has almost depleted the population, and a rigid system of schools and labour camps funnelling the remaining youth into sinister service to the “King of the New America”. Which for girls means, you guessed it, forced breeding. (Is it just me, or is this “girl’s value is in their baby producing ability” topic coming up a lot lately?)
Very little is provided in the way of explanation to flesh out this bleak vision of the future. I was distracted by this thinness of the world building throughout, struggling to visualise and accept the set up at face value. (And an immature inclination to chortle at the mention of the “King”.)
But the crux of my disengagement from Eve was Eve herself. I cannot recall a recent YA heroine that I have more vehemently disliked than this girl, who spends the entire book lurching from selfish decision to selfish decision. This in itself was perplexing to me. Although she was raised in a cloistered school with no contact with the outside world, and is actively educated in the “evils” of men and love, Eve purportedly has close friends of several years, and ample opportunity build meaningful relationships with her peers.
Despite this, Eve seems to have little compulsion to act in a compassionate or thoughtful manner, instead being so absorbed in herself that she causes harm to those around her. Further, Eve’s drastic flip-flop from fear of being raped to being basically affronted that she was not her rescuer’s “type”, was infuriating, not to mention ridiculous.
Granted, Eve has no understanding of how to survive in the wild, due to the closeted world she has been raised in. However, Eve’s continued abandonment, ignorance and outright endangerment of those around her boggled my mind. She leaves a trail of destruction in her wake as she stumbles through this story, and I simply couldn’t find it in myself to sympathise with her. On the contrary, I was frustrated, annoyed and entirely uninterested in her pity-parties. By the time she actually took pause to reflect on exactly what kind of havoc she had wreaked, I was so disconnected from her as a character that it was a struggle to muster any interest in her self-analysis.
Conversely, Eve’s former schoolmate and fellow escapee, Arden, was a girl I warmed to. Although initially cast as the suspicious outsider/mean girl, she was straight-talking, tough and intelligent, and frequently had scenes that made me want slap her a high-five.
The romance aspect of this story fell equally flat for me. Commencing when Caleb rescues Eve from an imminent bear attack, the two inevitably exchange meaningful gazes and heart-pounding touches. While I didn’t dislike Caleb as a character, and the life he and the other orphaned boys lived was somewhat intriguing, there was too much here that felt contrived and implausible. Not the least of this was the ease with which Eve assimilates into their world. Years of propaganda, fear and manipulation by her Teachers are swept away in mere days. Half-wild boys comport themselves, for the most part, like mild mannered school boys. And naturally, Eve falls in “love” with her dreadlocked, “ball song” singing saviour.
I can’t even write about Leif here, and the situation that unfolds during the raid, because I’m afraid I’ll punch my computer.
Below is a visual representation of my like or dislike of the main characters, relative to some of the major events. (Within a spoiler due to the naming of plot points):
On the positive side, Carey’s writing is fluid and holds attention, and she changes up the scenery and events regularly enough to keep the story well paced. It’s a fairly swift read, with a plot that keeps turning consistently.
Yet, just when I was beginning to soften, beginning to feel some interest in what would become of the characters and feel an investment in their goal: the ending. Although it is rather in keeping with the way Eve has behaved throughout the entire preceding story, it still seemed illogical and out of place to me. Frankly, it felt like the entire slog through Eve’s story was met with a slap in the face, and a cheap ploy to generate investment in the sequel.
However, I’m sincere when I say that I hope the continuation of this trilogy gets stronger. I certainly hope more of the world is explained and detailed. I hope some of the minor characters play a larger role, as there is real potential for their stories to be interesting.
That said, the bear is still my favourite character. High five, Bear!
Start with your randomly selected future date at room temperature. Add an ambiguous Plague (capitalised is best). Stir briefly to create a drastic population reduction, thereby ensuring wombs are a hot commodity in your new society. Heavily indoctrinate your characters to keep them in line and create exploitative scenarios, especially for teenagers. Insert an Improbable and Unexplained System of Government.
Got Plausibility Problems? Just add Romance! (Instant or QuickLuv is recommended). Sprinkle with Yearning Gazes, Electrifying Touches and Heaving Breaths to taste. Season liberally with Tension, or better yet, add Love Triangle and bring to the boil.
Insert Cliffhanger.
Huzzah! You have an Instant Dystopia! Plate up with a pretty cover (Shiny Locks and Flowing Dress optional). Serve while this trend is still hot!
~
Oh, Eve. Where do I start?
Despite a promising, albeit somewhat unoriginal, premise – it all went horribly wrong for me when Eve climbed aboard the Trope Train and didn’t know when to get off. Rushing straight past the stops of “frighteningly plausible” and “sound world building”, Eve charges down the well-travelled tracks of tru luv, flimsy backstory and convenient yet improbable scenarios. Throw in a thoroughly unsympathetic heroine and a head-desk inducing cliffhanger, and the resultant wreck claimed a few rating stars as casualties, along with my interest in reading the sequel.
One of the major issues I had with this book (I’ll get to the biggest in a minute) was the version of a “dystopian” world Carey presents. The scaffolding holding this world up was simply too rickety to stand up under questioning. We’re presented with an unexplained plague that has almost depleted the population, and a rigid system of schools and labour camps funnelling the remaining youth into sinister service to the “King of the New America”. Which for girls means, you guessed it, forced breeding. (Is it just me, or is this “girl’s value is in their baby producing ability” topic coming up a lot lately?)
Very little is provided in the way of explanation to flesh out this bleak vision of the future. I was distracted by this thinness of the world building throughout, struggling to visualise and accept the set up at face value. (And an immature inclination to chortle at the mention of the “King”.)
But the crux of my disengagement from Eve was Eve herself. I cannot recall a recent YA heroine that I have more vehemently disliked than this girl, who spends the entire book lurching from selfish decision to selfish decision. This in itself was perplexing to me. Although she was raised in a cloistered school with no contact with the outside world, and is actively educated in the “evils” of men and love, Eve purportedly has close friends of several years, and ample opportunity build meaningful relationships with her peers.
Despite this, Eve seems to have little compulsion to act in a compassionate or thoughtful manner, instead being so absorbed in herself that she causes harm to those around her. Further, Eve’s drastic flip-flop from fear of being raped to being basically affronted that she was not her rescuer’s “type”, was infuriating, not to mention ridiculous.
Granted, Eve has no understanding of how to survive in the wild, due to the closeted world she has been raised in. However, Eve’s continued abandonment, ignorance and outright endangerment of those around her boggled my mind. She leaves a trail of destruction in her wake as she stumbles through this story, and I simply couldn’t find it in myself to sympathise with her. On the contrary, I was frustrated, annoyed and entirely uninterested in her pity-parties. By the time she actually took pause to reflect on exactly what kind of havoc she had wreaked, I was so disconnected from her as a character that it was a struggle to muster any interest in her self-analysis.
Conversely, Eve’s former schoolmate and fellow escapee, Arden, was a girl I warmed to. Although initially cast as the suspicious outsider/mean girl, she was straight-talking, tough and intelligent, and frequently had scenes that made me want slap her a high-five.
The romance aspect of this story fell equally flat for me. Commencing when Caleb rescues Eve from an imminent bear attack, the two inevitably exchange meaningful gazes and heart-pounding touches. While I didn’t dislike Caleb as a character, and the life he and the other orphaned boys lived was somewhat intriguing, there was too much here that felt contrived and implausible. Not the least of this was the ease with which Eve assimilates into their world. Years of propaganda, fear and manipulation by her Teachers are swept away in mere days. Half-wild boys comport themselves, for the most part, like mild mannered school boys. And naturally, Eve falls in “love” with her dreadlocked, “ball song” singing saviour.
I can’t even write about Leif here, and the situation that unfolds during the raid, because I’m afraid I’ll punch my computer.
Below is a visual representation of my like or dislike of the main characters, relative to some of the major events. (Within a spoiler due to the naming of plot points):
On the positive side, Carey’s writing is fluid and holds attention, and she changes up the scenery and events regularly enough to keep the story well paced. It’s a fairly swift read, with a plot that keeps turning consistently.
Yet, just when I was beginning to soften, beginning to feel some interest in what would become of the characters and feel an investment in their goal: the ending. Although it is rather in keeping with the way Eve has behaved throughout the entire preceding story, it still seemed illogical and out of place to me. Frankly, it felt like the entire slog through Eve’s story was met with a slap in the face, and a cheap ploy to generate investment in the sequel.
However, I’m sincere when I say that I hope the continuation of this trilogy gets stronger. I certainly hope more of the world is explained and detailed. I hope some of the minor characters play a larger role, as there is real potential for their stories to be interesting.
That said, the bear is still my favourite character. High five, Bear!
May 12, 2020
”He was a strange breed of man, part wild. Not the sophisticated kind who graced the pages of The Great Gatsby. Nor did he seem like the violent man I’d encountered on my first day in the wild. He had saved me, at least. I could only hope that it wasn’t for some nefarious purpose.”
High Points.
The idea…. I know people will be like ‘B-b-but it’s exactly the same as The Handmaid’s Tale’… but I’ve never read it sooo… I think Ms Carey did a great job at setting up this idea and it was incredibly creepy. Arden. Caleb post-Eve. Ruby & Pip. Lief post-Eve.
Low Points.
Eve.
This book would have been awesome if Eve had just called in sick.
The representation of men. If you have a penis in this book you have to either be a leery sexual predator or a boy who goes all gooey when there is a girl in your vicinity. MAKE YOUR CHOICE, BOYS.
Insta-love. Can you buy this in a can? I think it is only acceptable (ish) for authors to make their characters fall in love so quickly in stand-alone novels. If you know that your book is going to be a series… let it simmer for a bit. You’ll make your readers go mental.
When they get together in like the fourth chapter, the mystery is gone and, unfortunately, so is my interest.
I really hope this is one of those series that gets better, because this book does have potential but these creases need to be ironed out.
Heroine.
I have a lot in common withMary Sue Eve: she’s beautiful, she’s intelligent, she’s irresistible to boys and she’s innocent and thinks that when a boy refers to his *whispers* balls he means the balls on his foot. (I still don’t get that joke. Sigh.)
She’s also a complete and utter Annoying Female Protagonist. (AFP)
I don’t want to be too cruel because it’s not entirely her fault. She’s had it pretty rough. She’s had to grow up without a mother in an all-girls school and a PLAGUE has killed everyone else, so her naivety and nervousness when it comes to the male species is understandable.
Because all girls who go to an all-girls school get jumpy and skittish when people of the male disposition are nearby. I mean, when I went to sixth form and a boy sat down next to me I stabbed him in the thigh with my fountain pen because his foot touched mine.
She’s never even seen a boy, so you can imagine what she’s like when Caleb and his glistening muscles and his whip (not joking) rides into her life (literally, on a stallion) after saving her from a bear (Yeah.. that happens).
It doesn’t help that she also had to attend "Dangers of Boys and Men" seminars (Um, yeah… that happens too.)
So I can let her off in that respect, albeit a little reluctantly. Because she has an excuse.
What she doesn’t have an excuse for is sashaying aroundNeverland the underground hovel in her skimpy clothes and wondering why the boys (who have never seen a girl either) are ogling at her goodies and then getting her kecks in a twist about it. Woman, just put a fleece on or something.
And neither does she have an excuse for going on about how amazing her best friends are/were. Um, well… if they’re so fun and amazing and always there for you even if you are annoying, then why did you leave them to get Atwood-ed?! Eh?
Also, you’re a reet Moaning Minnie.
But other than that…..
Best Friend.
I feel really sorry for Eve’s friends. They seem really sweet, funny and very patient with Eve’s AFP ways. One of them also sings my second favourite Beatles song in the shower. So that’s also fine.
But yeah… I’m hoping Pip and Ruby get more air time in the other books because they were great and grossly under-used. I also am hankering for a show-down between them where they just beat Eve with a stick for leaving them high and dry and getting distracted by abs instead of helping them.
Also, major love for Arden. She is rebellious and prickly and has a personality and cut her hair short because she doesn’t care what people think of her.
I also thought that she was going to be the obstacle between Eve and Caleb’s undying love because she perved at him when she first saw him. And I got all excited because it’s far more likely for two girls to fight over a boy than two boys over a girl. And I thought “Wow, that’s different and exciting and unique”.
But before I could say “CATFIGHT!!” it was made clear that Caleb only has eyes for Eve. So that was the end of that.
Love Interest.
It’s difficult to not to swoon over a boy like Caleb. He’s ripped as anything, he walks around topless, he has edgy and unique hair, he’s sweet, he doesn’t gawk at Eve’s boobs and he’s a bit feral. Perfect guy, right?
Well.
You know when someone tells you not to think of something and all you can do is think of that thing?
This is how I pictured Caleb.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I love Rufio as much as the next girl and what happens to him always shocks me because I have selective memory with things like that and I pretend it doesn’t happen.
But bringer of the swoon he is not.
Caleb has potential to develop into a BotS in future books… if he drops the ball and chain…. Off a cliff.
Also, unlike Eve, whose too polite and in love with you and describes your smell as ‘earthy’ and ‘smokey’ and ‘charcoaly’, I am not polite and in love with you so I substituted these pleasant adjective with my own phrase - "gross boy smell".
Which is more likely because you’ve been living underground with other smelly boys for years.
Also, it made these descriptions HILARIOUS.
See?
Baddie.
Hmm… I’m reluctant to put Lief in this category because I’m guessing he’s going to swagger into the above category as the series continues. But yeah, he’s a massive douchebag and he can’t control his animal urges but he also has issues and a sensitive side.
And he’s totally smokin’.
Also we have the King. But we didn’t find much about him, except that he must have Eve.
And then we have THE PLAGUE. But unless I missed the part that explains anything about what this PLAGUE is or why it killed 98% of the world’s population… we’re going to have to wait for book two to find out about this.
I’m still holding out for the 98% of the world’s population to suddenly re-animate and eat everyone. And when I say everyone… I mostly mean Eve, because I was fond of all the other characters.
Theme Tune.
Dear Eve,
This song is for you,
Best Wishes,
Everybody in New America.
Also, this song is for Caleb to serenade Eve with when she realises she actually does fancy the hottie with the frisky hands in future books.
This song is the only instant where love triangles are fun. And I think Caleb would suit one of those chunky knits.
But I have a feeling that those aren’t diamonds in his pocket…
Angst Level.
5/10. The reason why Eve escaped from school is really grim and terrifying to think of. But apart from that and the occasional Handy McGrabby boy, this book is pretty tame in the angst section.
There are many pages where we get Eve whinging about the repercussions of the situations she got herself into. And, of course, boy angst.
Because she’s stoopid.
Recommended for.
People who have hope that some series get better as they go on. People who love dystopian fiction in all its oppressive ways. People who ever thought “You know what? I wish this story had more boys who don’t know the meaning of ‘look don’t touch’” about Peter Pan. People who don’t read the word ‘plague’ and automatically get excited over the prospect of potential zombies. People who think Rufio has some kind of, allure. People who are going to have to watch Hook so they can make an informed decision.
I received a copy of this book from the publishers, it will be available to buy later this year.
High Points.
The idea…. I know people will be like ‘B-b-but it’s exactly the same as The Handmaid’s Tale’… but I’ve never read it sooo… I think Ms Carey did a great job at setting up this idea and it was incredibly creepy. Arden. Caleb post-Eve. Ruby & Pip. Lief post-Eve.
Low Points.
Eve.
This book would have been awesome if Eve had just called in sick.
The representation of men. If you have a penis in this book you have to either be a leery sexual predator or a boy who goes all gooey when there is a girl in your vicinity. MAKE YOUR CHOICE, BOYS.
Insta-love. Can you buy this in a can? I think it is only acceptable (ish) for authors to make their characters fall in love so quickly in stand-alone novels. If you know that your book is going to be a series… let it simmer for a bit. You’ll make your readers go mental.
When they get together in like the fourth chapter, the mystery is gone and, unfortunately, so is my interest.
I really hope this is one of those series that gets better, because this book does have potential but these creases need to be ironed out.
Heroine.
I have a lot in common with
She’s also a complete and utter Annoying Female Protagonist. (AFP)
I don’t want to be too cruel because it’s not entirely her fault. She’s had it pretty rough. She’s had to grow up without a mother in an all-girls school and a PLAGUE has killed everyone else, so her naivety and nervousness when it comes to the male species is understandable.
Because all girls who go to an all-girls school get jumpy and skittish when people of the male disposition are nearby. I mean, when I went to sixth form and a boy sat down next to me I stabbed him in the thigh with my fountain pen because his foot touched mine.
She’s never even seen a boy, so you can imagine what she’s like when Caleb and his glistening muscles and his whip (not joking) rides into her life (literally, on a stallion) after saving her from a bear (Yeah.. that happens).
It doesn’t help that she also had to attend "Dangers of Boys and Men" seminars (Um, yeah… that happens too.)
So I can let her off in that respect, albeit a little reluctantly. Because she has an excuse.
What she doesn’t have an excuse for is sashaying around
And neither does she have an excuse for going on about how amazing her best friends are/were. Um, well… if they’re so fun and amazing and always there for you even if you are annoying, then why did you leave them to get Atwood-ed?! Eh?
Also, you’re a reet Moaning Minnie.
But other than that…..
Best Friend.
I feel really sorry for Eve’s friends. They seem really sweet, funny and very patient with Eve’s AFP ways. One of them also sings my second favourite Beatles song in the shower. So that’s also fine.
But yeah… I’m hoping Pip and Ruby get more air time in the other books because they were great and grossly under-used. I also am hankering for a show-down between them where they just beat Eve with a stick for leaving them high and dry and getting distracted by abs instead of helping them.
Also, major love for Arden. She is rebellious and prickly and has a personality and cut her hair short because she doesn’t care what people think of her.
I also thought that she was going to be the obstacle between Eve and Caleb’s undying love because she perved at him when she first saw him. And I got all excited because it’s far more likely for two girls to fight over a boy than two boys over a girl. And I thought “Wow, that’s different and exciting and unique”.
But before I could say “CATFIGHT!!” it was made clear that Caleb only has eyes for Eve. So that was the end of that.
Love Interest.
It’s difficult to not to swoon over a boy like Caleb. He’s ripped as anything, he walks around topless, he has edgy and unique hair, he’s sweet, he doesn’t gawk at Eve’s boobs and he’s a bit feral. Perfect guy, right?
Well.
You know when someone tells you not to think of something and all you can do is think of that thing?
This is how I pictured Caleb.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I love Rufio as much as the next girl and what happens to him always shocks me because I have selective memory with things like that and I pretend it doesn’t happen.
But bringer of the swoon he is not.
Caleb has potential to develop into a BotS in future books… if he drops the ball and chain…. Off a cliff.
Also, unlike Eve, whose too polite and in love with you and describes your smell as ‘earthy’ and ‘smokey’ and ‘charcoaly’, I am not polite and in love with you so I substituted these pleasant adjective with my own phrase - "gross boy smell".
Which is more likely because you’ve been living underground with other smelly boys for years.
Also, it made these descriptions HILARIOUS.
“His gaze traced the lines of my mouth, his eyes finally settling on mine. His breath filled my ears and I smelled thecharcoalgross boy smell again as I leaned closer.”
See?
Baddie.
Hmm… I’m reluctant to put Lief in this category because I’m guessing he’s going to swagger into the above category as the series continues. But yeah, he’s a massive douchebag and he can’t control his animal urges but he also has issues and a sensitive side.
And he’s totally smokin’.
Also we have the King. But we didn’t find much about him, except that he must have Eve.
And then we have THE PLAGUE. But unless I missed the part that explains anything about what this PLAGUE is or why it killed 98% of the world’s population… we’re going to have to wait for book two to find out about this.
I’m still holding out for the 98% of the world’s population to suddenly re-animate and eat everyone. And when I say everyone… I mostly mean Eve, because I was fond of all the other characters.
Theme Tune.
Dear Eve,
This song is for you,
Best Wishes,
Everybody in New America.
Also, this song is for Caleb to serenade Eve with when she realises she actually does fancy the hottie with the frisky hands in future books.
This song is the only instant where love triangles are fun. And I think Caleb would suit one of those chunky knits.
But I have a feeling that those aren’t diamonds in his pocket…
Angst Level.
5/10. The reason why Eve escaped from school is really grim and terrifying to think of. But apart from that and the occasional Handy McGrabby boy, this book is pretty tame in the angst section.
There are many pages where we get Eve whinging about the repercussions of the situations she got herself into. And, of course, boy angst.
Because she’s stoopid.
Recommended for.
People who have hope that some series get better as they go on. People who love dystopian fiction in all its oppressive ways. People who ever thought “You know what? I wish this story had more boys who don’t know the meaning of ‘look don’t touch’” about Peter Pan. People who don’t read the word ‘plague’ and automatically get excited over the prospect of potential zombies. People who think Rufio has some kind of, allure. People who are going to have to watch Hook so they can make an informed decision.
I received a copy of this book from the publishers, it will be available to buy later this year.
May 14, 2020
well, this is very telling.
i came over here to write the review for this book, and realized i couldn't find my copy of it. "no worries," i thought, "i will just write the review from my recollections of the text without using any quotes or anything..."
crickets.
it's not that i don't have any memories of it—i do: innocence, arden, breeding, bear, radio, wild boys, freckles, pantry, bridge, love.
there. that's a review, right?
the book is fine, it just suffers from being ONE MORE in an already crazy-long line of books just like it. and i think this is the kind of book elizabeth was talking about the other day when she said YA exhausts her because she is tired of reading another cheesy teen love story, just with different scenery. or something. she said it better—i forget where. i just went looking for it, and ended up getting distracted by new reviews and comments and then remembered—oh, yeah, i am supposed to be writing a book review.
so you see how into writing this review i am.
i thought it started out fine. (the book, not the review—that was a disaster from the get-go) i liked the premise even though i don't totally buy the character: so eve has been sheltered in her girl-cocoon; friend to all, golden child, star pupil, ace reporter, and then just out of the clear blue sky, because some teen rebel tells her something shocking, yes, but something that goes against everything eve "knows," she's just gonna break one of the most fundamental rules of her society and go stumbling across the water even though she can't even swim, putting herself in danger just on the strength of a quick convo with a chick she doesn't even like? it just seems like someone indoctrinated into that world would be less investigative, you know?
but i guess that is part of what makes eve SPECIAL!
but she's not. not really. i personally am tired of selfishness being passed off as naïveté. eve is not a heroine. she is the main protagonist, but she has no honor. so many people come to bad ends because of her actions, and she is just swanning through the wreckage, unscathed, in her revealing clothing cooing, "what are these boys and why are they all looking at me??"
backtrack. eve has been raised in an all-girl environment, been told that men are all horrible rapists and that once she gets her shiny education, she will go to the golden land and live a life of academic bliss and personal happiness. but that's a lie, and after all the intensive schooling, all these girls are just going to be strapped to a bed and forced to make baby after baby for the brave new world.
wait—so why are they trained so well? it's not as though these girls are going to be raising their babies and passing along this education, so no one is going to benefit from this schooling at all. seems a waste of time and resources.
so whatever—eve escapes, leaving behind her closest friends, not warning them that they are about to become baby-machines, hot on the heels of teen rebel arden who told her the truth in the first place. of course they are going to somehow meet up in the great wide world. and of course there are going to be boys.
so eve gets rescued from a bear (oooooh, cuddly!!) by a dreadlocked boy on a stallion, and he takes her back to his little lost boys enclave, where the younger boys crouch at her feet and learn how to read, and the older boys stifle their lust, with varying degrees of success.
because this is a YA novel, we will not be picky about the realty of this situation. dirty boys, living in the wilderness, with no former dealings with women are probably not going to be standing on ceremony here. i think it would have gotten uglier in a real-world situation.
but not here. here it is a relatively safe place where only one boy loses his self control and another boy gets to experience troo love.
and eve gets to ruin a few more lives.
later, she will do something else stupid (FOR LOOOOVE) and ruin a few more. irrevocably.
and we aren't going to talk about how adaptable eve seems to be, from being told for 18 years that all men are bad to only showing a little bit of initial fear that is pretty quickly sloughed off as she takes charge and falls into insta-love.
but she has to keep running, because the king wants to put his own personal baby in her because she is the most beautiful and the most dumb.
and the ending. oh, dear. it is the most abrupt ending in the history of books. i am going to avoid spoilers but it's like, "oh, wait, what?? really?? but i love you. oh, okay, whatever. see ya"
end book.
i know i kind of trashed the book here, but it is not the worst thing i have read. i was interested enough to keep reading, and the concept was good, if some of the world-building elements were far-fetched and counterintuitive. but it is fun and quick, and who needs plausibility, right?
come to my blog!
i came over here to write the review for this book, and realized i couldn't find my copy of it. "no worries," i thought, "i will just write the review from my recollections of the text without using any quotes or anything..."
crickets.
it's not that i don't have any memories of it—i do: innocence, arden, breeding, bear, radio, wild boys, freckles, pantry, bridge, love.
there. that's a review, right?
the book is fine, it just suffers from being ONE MORE in an already crazy-long line of books just like it. and i think this is the kind of book elizabeth was talking about the other day when she said YA exhausts her because she is tired of reading another cheesy teen love story, just with different scenery. or something. she said it better—i forget where. i just went looking for it, and ended up getting distracted by new reviews and comments and then remembered—oh, yeah, i am supposed to be writing a book review.
so you see how into writing this review i am.
i thought it started out fine. (the book, not the review—that was a disaster from the get-go) i liked the premise even though i don't totally buy the character: so eve has been sheltered in her girl-cocoon; friend to all, golden child, star pupil, ace reporter, and then just out of the clear blue sky, because some teen rebel tells her something shocking, yes, but something that goes against everything eve "knows," she's just gonna break one of the most fundamental rules of her society and go stumbling across the water even though she can't even swim, putting herself in danger just on the strength of a quick convo with a chick she doesn't even like? it just seems like someone indoctrinated into that world would be less investigative, you know?
but i guess that is part of what makes eve SPECIAL!
but she's not. not really. i personally am tired of selfishness being passed off as naïveté. eve is not a heroine. she is the main protagonist, but she has no honor. so many people come to bad ends because of her actions, and she is just swanning through the wreckage, unscathed, in her revealing clothing cooing, "what are these boys and why are they all looking at me??"
backtrack. eve has been raised in an all-girl environment, been told that men are all horrible rapists and that once she gets her shiny education, she will go to the golden land and live a life of academic bliss and personal happiness. but that's a lie, and after all the intensive schooling, all these girls are just going to be strapped to a bed and forced to make baby after baby for the brave new world.
wait—so why are they trained so well? it's not as though these girls are going to be raising their babies and passing along this education, so no one is going to benefit from this schooling at all. seems a waste of time and resources.
so whatever—eve escapes, leaving behind her closest friends, not warning them that they are about to become baby-machines, hot on the heels of teen rebel arden who told her the truth in the first place. of course they are going to somehow meet up in the great wide world. and of course there are going to be boys.
so eve gets rescued from a bear (oooooh, cuddly!!) by a dreadlocked boy on a stallion, and he takes her back to his little lost boys enclave, where the younger boys crouch at her feet and learn how to read, and the older boys stifle their lust, with varying degrees of success.
because this is a YA novel, we will not be picky about the realty of this situation. dirty boys, living in the wilderness, with no former dealings with women are probably not going to be standing on ceremony here. i think it would have gotten uglier in a real-world situation.
but not here. here it is a relatively safe place where only one boy loses his self control and another boy gets to experience troo love.
and eve gets to ruin a few more lives.
later, she will do something else stupid (FOR LOOOOVE) and ruin a few more. irrevocably.
and we aren't going to talk about how adaptable eve seems to be, from being told for 18 years that all men are bad to only showing a little bit of initial fear that is pretty quickly sloughed off as she takes charge and falls into insta-love.
but she has to keep running, because the king wants to put his own personal baby in her because she is the most beautiful and the most dumb.
and the ending. oh, dear. it is the most abrupt ending in the history of books. i am going to avoid spoilers but it's like, "oh, wait, what?? really?? but i love you. oh, okay, whatever. see ya"
end book.
i know i kind of trashed the book here, but it is not the worst thing i have read. i was interested enough to keep reading, and the concept was good, if some of the world-building elements were far-fetched and counterintuitive. but it is fun and quick, and who needs plausibility, right?
come to my blog!
January 21, 2012
One of the first questions I ask myself when I'm reading a dystopian novel is, "Could I ever live in this world?" I can easily answer no for Eve. I can see this book having two distinctive effects on people: horrifying them and completely turning them off or intriguing them just enough to keep them reading. I'm happy to say I fell in the latter category.
Eve lives in a world that has been devastated by a deadly Plague leaving countless children orphans. As a result, the country is in disorder and the people, desperate for a solution, allowing one man to rule as king, whose ideals for rebuilding, prey on the most innocent members of society. Girls, or sows, are sent to Schools where they are taught men are evil and manipulative only to graduate and be forced to conceive child after child to help populate the world. Boys, on the other hand, are sent to labor camps where they work long hours, their innocence stolen before it even had time to begin. Eve learns these awful truths the day before she is set to graduate and she does what anyone in her situation would do. She runs.
Things I loved
The premise of the book is a disturbing one. Connecting with the minor characters was something I didn't expect would happen. I couldn't help but think of my own children as I read it. To think society would ever slip that far and abuse our children...it bothers me. It bothered me on the same level that the Hunger Games did with children battling it out to the death for adult entertainment. So, for that Eve kept me turning page after page because as a mother my heart broke for the kids in this book. There was one scene in the book were a little boy asks Eve what love is and she tells them:
"Love is just caring for someone very deeply. Feeling like that person matters to you, like your whole world would be sadder without them in it."That was just very heartbreaking for me. For a 6-year-old not knowing what love is. Like I said, it bothers me. But not in the bad way where I would want to stop reading. Instead, in a way that made me stop and be very thankful for what I have in life.
The writing style was pretty good, in my opinion. I could even pick out a few quotes that I thought were lovely like this one:
The stream was the only hand that touched me, the wind the only breath that blew the dust from my eyes. I learned the strange art of loneliness, the weathered yearning that swells and passes, swells and passes, when you walk a trail alone.I also really liked the love interest, Caleb. You know how the love interest always pulls the card where his controlling over protectiveness is romanticized as loving concern? I didn't find that here. Caleb was a sweet guy. He took care of Eve and her friend, Arden when they had nowhere to go. I could feel that he really cared for Eve. There is one part of the novel that spoke volumes about his character to me. Eve was staying with Caleb and a group of other "stray" boys and they were just about to go on a raid the guard’s outpost. Caleb doesn't think it's a good idea that she goes:
"What if I still want to go?"That quote made me so happy because YES, let's tell the heroine of the danger, but YES, let her decide if she wants to proceed or not.
"Then you'll go," he said. "But I wanted you to know the danger."
Things I disliked
I think we all saw this coming from me: The world building. Unfortunately, I had trouble with the believability that America could sink so low as to do away with democracy, liberty, and basic human rights in such a short amount of time. It's only been sixteen years and Americans have reverted to enslaving their children? No, just no. Furthermore, if the goal is to reproduce as fast as humanly possible, why aren't the adults (who live comfortably in the city) charged with having children? Why only the orphan girls? Not only that, but again, and this seems to be something I'm saying a lot lately, but what in the world are the rest of the human population doing?
Besides that sketchy world building, there was one big thing that I really disliked: Eve. Eve had exactly three "modes" in this book: 1)Saw dust for brains 2)Too stupid to live 3)Selfish. She goes through the novel making the worst decisions possible that either ended up getting someone else hurt or killed. I get that she was sheltered all her life and that perception of the real world had been tampered with, but why no common sense? Petting a wild bear is suicide. It does not in any way, shape, or form resemble Winnie the Pooh. It's time for a wild life lesson:
If you saw a grizzly in the woods, would you immediately think of this guy?
Maybe I'm missing something here. Do they look related to you? No? Not even distant cousins, twice removed? Now, I'm no expert, but to me it looks like one of these bears is about to rip a clueless girl a new one, while the other is only a danger to himself of overdosing on jars of honey. How does that saying go again? Oh, yeah. Eve was a few french fries short of a happy meal. At first, I gave her the benefit of the doubt, but she didn't seem to get any smarter as the novel wore on. For example, her relationship with Caleb. You all know how the YA romance goes. You've got to have something that breaks the couple up. Eve gets into an argument with Caleb about wanting to stay with him instead of traveling to Califia (the shelter). He reasonably tells her he would like that, but since the king is after her, she would be safer at the shelter. You know what Eve does? She throws a tantrum and calls him selfish. -_- And that is the scene I lost all my respect for her. It was frustrating! I just wanted her to use her brain just once! That's not really asking too much is it?
Yet, somehow I was able to enjoy this book. Again, mostly thanks to the minor characters and Caleb. The ending leaves us with a cliffhanger you knew was coming. Let's just say it left me angry and leave it at that. Even stranger is that I really do want to check out the sequel. Huh.
More reviews and more at Cuddlebuggery Book Blog.
November 10, 2012
To say that Eve surprised me would be a massive, massive understatement. The only reason I picked up this book to begin with was because I have an ARC of Once, Eve's sequel, sitting around, and I felt bad for neglecting it. I had fairly low expectations before going into Eve, and quite honestly, I expected my rating at the end to be at most two or three stars, after reading some of the negative reviews that almost assured I would have a similar experience.
And I think it may be because of those very reviews that I had an experience almost completely opposite with Eve. Before even opening the pages Eve, I expected a boring read with mediocre characters and horrible world-building, as that is what most of the negative reviews led me to believe, but instead, what I got with Eve was a disturbing and emotionally raw novel with great characters that made me cry a countless amount of times. I found Eve to be a powerful and beautifully written little novel, and it was one that punched me in the gut over and over and over again.
In the world of Eve, a disastrous plague has swept the entire nation and left ninety-eight of the entire population dying. After the aftermath of the plague, and after seeing her loved ones slowly fall at the hands of the plague, Eve is brought into the School - a housing place for young girls. At the School, the girls are fed, taught, and treated to until they turn eighteen. However, a day before her graduation from the School, Eve escapes to find out what really happens to the women after they graduate. Horrified by what she finds out to be the truth, she escapes from the School in a mission to go to a place called Califia; a place where she will be safe. But how will Eve, having been sheltered and kept from the outside world almost all her life, know who to trust?
As I am writing this review, I am struggling to find another instance where a book has had as great of an emotional impact on me as Eve has. In fact, upon reading the very first pages in Eve, I found myself tearing up. This book is about love, it is about loss, it is about moving on, and, alongside that, it is about a young girl trying to run away from her future while also escaping from a deadly plague. And it handles all of that amazingly.
Eve is not the smartest heroine you'll ever read about, or the strongest, and she is at times a bit selfish and difficult to like, but I just found that to be the effects of her being sheltered and monitored and lied to her entire life. She's at times naive, and she is imperfect, but she learns from her mistakes and she feels guilt for her wrong decisions, seemingly miniscule and incapable of harm to her, that, unfortunately, impacted other people's lives. Eve feels regret for those decisions she's made, and she betters herself as a person through those wrong decisions. Or, in other words, she's human. And she's a lot more of a believable character than half of the heroines in young adult dystopians on the market today.
As well as Eve, the secondary characters, and Eve's love interest, Caleb, were incredibly likable and developed throughout the course of the novel. I have to say that my favorite character in Eve was Arden, and that my favorite relationship in Eve was the one between her and Eve. The two girls are incredibly different and not ideal friends at first, but throughout the novel they learn that they are similar in many ways, and their relationship has one of the most interesting and well-developed dynamics I've had the pleasure to read about this year. I only wish I could say the same for the relationship between the two central characters, Eve and Caleb. While I definitely found Caleb to be a likable character, and Eve an at times likable character, I was never really sold on their relationship together. It was sweet, and it wasn't insta-love, but to me it just felt like there was no basis behind the purpose of the romance. Though I guess sometimes relationships are like that in the real world, as well.
While the novel itself is certainly not without its flaws - the biggest one pertaining to the world-building, or lack thereof, I found Eve to be an engaging and powerful read, set in a grisly and disturbing world that is scarily possible, and the emotional impact it had on me is one that I am sure to remember. I am now happy that I have that ARC of Once waiting for me, and I am eager to see what Carey has in store.
And I think it may be because of those very reviews that I had an experience almost completely opposite with Eve. Before even opening the pages Eve, I expected a boring read with mediocre characters and horrible world-building, as that is what most of the negative reviews led me to believe, but instead, what I got with Eve was a disturbing and emotionally raw novel with great characters that made me cry a countless amount of times. I found Eve to be a powerful and beautifully written little novel, and it was one that punched me in the gut over and over and over again.
In the world of Eve, a disastrous plague has swept the entire nation and left ninety-eight of the entire population dying. After the aftermath of the plague, and after seeing her loved ones slowly fall at the hands of the plague, Eve is brought into the School - a housing place for young girls. At the School, the girls are fed, taught, and treated to until they turn eighteen. However, a day before her graduation from the School, Eve escapes to find out what really happens to the women after they graduate. Horrified by what she finds out to be the truth, she escapes from the School in a mission to go to a place called Califia; a place where she will be safe. But how will Eve, having been sheltered and kept from the outside world almost all her life, know who to trust?
As I am writing this review, I am struggling to find another instance where a book has had as great of an emotional impact on me as Eve has. In fact, upon reading the very first pages in Eve, I found myself tearing up. This book is about love, it is about loss, it is about moving on, and, alongside that, it is about a young girl trying to run away from her future while also escaping from a deadly plague. And it handles all of that amazingly.
I'd once read about amputees, and how they had pains where their arms and legs used to be. Phantom limbs, they were called. I'd always thought that was the best way to describe my feelings about my mother. She was now just an ache for something I'd had lost.
Eve is not the smartest heroine you'll ever read about, or the strongest, and she is at times a bit selfish and difficult to like, but I just found that to be the effects of her being sheltered and monitored and lied to her entire life. She's at times naive, and she is imperfect, but she learns from her mistakes and she feels guilt for her wrong decisions, seemingly miniscule and incapable of harm to her, that, unfortunately, impacted other people's lives. Eve feels regret for those decisions she's made, and she betters herself as a person through those wrong decisions. Or, in other words, she's human. And she's a lot more of a believable character than half of the heroines in young adult dystopians on the market today.
As well as Eve, the secondary characters, and Eve's love interest, Caleb, were incredibly likable and developed throughout the course of the novel. I have to say that my favorite character in Eve was Arden, and that my favorite relationship in Eve was the one between her and Eve. The two girls are incredibly different and not ideal friends at first, but throughout the novel they learn that they are similar in many ways, and their relationship has one of the most interesting and well-developed dynamics I've had the pleasure to read about this year. I only wish I could say the same for the relationship between the two central characters, Eve and Caleb. While I definitely found Caleb to be a likable character, and Eve an at times likable character, I was never really sold on their relationship together. It was sweet, and it wasn't insta-love, but to me it just felt like there was no basis behind the purpose of the romance. Though I guess sometimes relationships are like that in the real world, as well.
While the novel itself is certainly not without its flaws - the biggest one pertaining to the world-building, or lack thereof, I found Eve to be an engaging and powerful read, set in a grisly and disturbing world that is scarily possible, and the emotional impact it had on me is one that I am sure to remember. I am now happy that I have that ARC of Once waiting for me, and I am eager to see what Carey has in store.
December 7, 2013
Re-read from 26th-29th Nov 2013
“You can love anyone. Love is just caring about someone very deeply. Feeling like that person matters to you, like your whole world would be sadder without them in it.”
GENRE: YA/DYSTOPIAN/ROMANCE (with bits of action)
Eve is set in the year 2032, 16 years after a deadly virus wiped out most of Earth's population. Males and females have been saparated ever since.
“Sometimes it seems like all the things I need to know, I don’t. And all the things I do know are completely wrong.”
At the school were Eve and all the other girls lived and learned, they were taught that men can not be trusted. Men will manipulate them. Lie to them, and hurt them. Men are the enemy of every girl in New America. But everything they learned was a lie...
Eve, a 16 year old, innocent girl, finds out the brutal truth hidden from everyone. She knows one thing...if she stays she will be doomed to an eternity of pain, sorrow and helplessness. There is not other option but to run away beyond the wall that used to be her safe haven from all the dangers out there. Now, she is alone, scared, hungry.
Then she meets Caleb....
Caleb is a rough, rebellious boy living in the wild. Separated from men her whole life, Eve automatically doesn't trust him. But soon, Caleb wins over her trust...and eventually her heart. He promises he will protect her, but soldiers are looking for Eve.
And to be in love in a world like this one, is to be already cursed.
Sacrifices and choices have to be made...true love...or her life?
I have first read Eve in Jan 2012, and LOVED it to the very last page.
But it's been a long time since then, and obviously my tastes in books have changed quite a lot as i haven't really enjoyed Eve this time.
I re-read Eve because i want to re-read Once (2nd book) so i can finally read the last one and be done with the whole trilogy.
I wonder how that's gonna work out for me.
Characters
Eve
Reading through my old review, i am surprised that i actually wrote i 'loved' her, because it was far from what i felt now.
I could not connect with Eve and i didn't like her. Wouldn't say i hated her either though.
To me, she was too girly, and too...dependent on someone else.
She couldn't do anything useful, like defend her own ass and look after herself. Everybody else had to do that for her and it got on my nerves, as many characters that i actually liked died or got hurt protecting her.
Caleb
I didn't necessarily 'like' him too. He was..OK. To be honest, it felt WEIRD reading about him, and how weird is THAT?
He definitely did not make me swoon..or drool for that matter.
But i liked how...ermm...thoughtful and 'nice' he was to others. Caleb was very helpful.
“A relationship between two people can be judged by the list of things unspoken between them.”
The relationship between Eve and Caleb was perhaps the worse thing of the whole book. I felt no connection, chemistry or anything whats so ever between those two. The romance felt shallow and forced. If you're not going to take time to develop the relationship between characters step-by-step, realistically then don't even bother...like, seriously just don't.
Eve is a very emotionally action-packed book that i think many readers would enjoy, especially dystopian fans.
I am a sucker for action scenes and, like, running away from people plotlines, and this one had a lot of those that were actually amazing at times. But the problem was, for some reason i couldn't get into it? Maybe it was because of the style of writing (which i'm not really a big fan of).
The world building was good. I give it 6/10. Not the best i have read, but decent stuff that i liked.
“Love was death’s only adversary, the only thing powerful enough to combat its clawing, desperate grasp.
The ending was a bit like...
I still found it very sad, but i didn't cry mind you.
For those who will read this for the first time you're gonna be all like...
and some will get teared up a little...
“I loved my mother too,' I said. 'I still do. That's the thing - it never goes away, even if the person does.”
Overall Eve was a good read. I liked it.
Would i recommend it to others? Sure, why not. I have a feeling people will like it more than i did, but BE WARNED, this book might creep you out a tiny bit
Sincerely - The Critic
“You can love anyone. Love is just caring about someone very deeply. Feeling like that person matters to you, like your whole world would be sadder without them in it.”
GENRE: YA/DYSTOPIAN/ROMANCE (with bits of action)
WHERE DO YOU GO WHEN NOWHERE IS SAFE?
Eve is set in the year 2032, 16 years after a deadly virus wiped out most of Earth's population. Males and females have been saparated ever since.
“Sometimes it seems like all the things I need to know, I don’t. And all the things I do know are completely wrong.”
At the school were Eve and all the other girls lived and learned, they were taught that men can not be trusted. Men will manipulate them. Lie to them, and hurt them. Men are the enemy of every girl in New America. But everything they learned was a lie...
Eve, a 16 year old, innocent girl, finds out the brutal truth hidden from everyone. She knows one thing...if she stays she will be doomed to an eternity of pain, sorrow and helplessness. There is not other option but to run away beyond the wall that used to be her safe haven from all the dangers out there. Now, she is alone, scared, hungry.
Then she meets Caleb....
Caleb is a rough, rebellious boy living in the wild. Separated from men her whole life, Eve automatically doesn't trust him. But soon, Caleb wins over her trust...and eventually her heart. He promises he will protect her, but soldiers are looking for Eve.
And to be in love in a world like this one, is to be already cursed.
Sacrifices and choices have to be made...true love...or her life?
I have first read Eve in Jan 2012, and LOVED it to the very last page.
But it's been a long time since then, and obviously my tastes in books have changed quite a lot as i haven't really enjoyed Eve this time.
I re-read Eve because i want to re-read Once (2nd book) so i can finally read the last one and be done with the whole trilogy.
I wonder how that's gonna work out for me.
Characters
Eve
Reading through my old review, i am surprised that i actually wrote i 'loved' her, because it was far from what i felt now.
I could not connect with Eve and i didn't like her. Wouldn't say i hated her either though.
To me, she was too girly, and too...dependent on someone else.
She couldn't do anything useful, like defend her own ass and look after herself. Everybody else had to do that for her and it got on my nerves, as many characters that i actually liked died or got hurt protecting her.
Caleb
I didn't necessarily 'like' him too. He was..OK. To be honest, it felt WEIRD reading about him, and how weird is THAT?
He definitely did not make me swoon..or drool for that matter.
But i liked how...ermm...thoughtful and 'nice' he was to others. Caleb was very helpful.
“A relationship between two people can be judged by the list of things unspoken between them.”
The relationship between Eve and Caleb was perhaps the worse thing of the whole book. I felt no connection, chemistry or anything whats so ever between those two. The romance felt shallow and forced. If you're not going to take time to develop the relationship between characters step-by-step, realistically then don't even bother...like, seriously just don't.
Eve is a very emotionally action-packed book that i think many readers would enjoy, especially dystopian fans.
I am a sucker for action scenes and, like, running away from people plotlines, and this one had a lot of those that were actually amazing at times. But the problem was, for some reason i couldn't get into it? Maybe it was because of the style of writing (which i'm not really a big fan of).
The world building was good. I give it 6/10. Not the best i have read, but decent stuff that i liked.
“Love was death’s only adversary, the only thing powerful enough to combat its clawing, desperate grasp.
The ending was a bit like...
I still found it very sad, but i didn't cry mind you.
For those who will read this for the first time you're gonna be all like...
and some will get teared up a little...
“I loved my mother too,' I said. 'I still do. That's the thing - it never goes away, even if the person does.”
Overall Eve was a good read. I liked it.
Would i recommend it to others? Sure, why not. I have a feeling people will like it more than i did, but BE WARNED, this book might creep you out a tiny bit
Sincerely - The Critic
October 25, 2011
3.5
*low whistle* WOW. There is quite a bit of ragging on this book here.
I did a naughty thing. I picked this book to read, then looked at the reviews here. And did I ever TAINT my own mind!
So I immediately started off wanting to hate it and call it misogynistic. But guess what? I actually DIDN'T hate it!
Okay, so it's not the Mona Lisa of YA, but really, I don't think it deserves the one and two star ratings.
Here's the biggest thing to remember about this dystopian world:
The role of women in this society is something society-created, not humanity-created.
What I mean by that is that this is a dystopia for a reason. Eve, Caleb and even Leif are all products of that particular society.
That being said, was Eve incredibly weak and annoying at times? Yes. Was her attitude around Caleb highly and annoying naive at times? Yes! But (and this is really true) she did everything with the best intentions.
Some of the worst things imaginable have started with the best intentions, but that is not the point here.
The point is I would judge a female character from this world acting like that harder than I judged Eve in her world.
AND I got say I thought she manned up there at the end. In the beginning she was deathly afraid of a man and by the end (NOT A SPOILER) she's pointing a gun at a man. AFTER all the death, etc she's seen. Come on, that takes some gutage.
And don't get me wrong. The premise of this book is quite appalling. I wouldn't call myself a feminist by definition, but the idea of women being a baby-factory is disgusting, demeaning, degrading and morally wrong. So don't think my defense of Eve's character, etc is stemming from some hyper-traditional beliefs. It's not.
But the story was well-written, there was good pacing, the characterization was good, and you know what? I think I will be checking out the sequel!
I did feel like certain things were rushed. Like her finding out about the baby-factory life, the escape and the relationship with Caleb (though I could argue myself on that one - being uber sheltered would lead to more extremist feelings when they came about).
Okay. Off my soapbox now!
*low whistle* WOW. There is quite a bit of ragging on this book here.
I did a naughty thing. I picked this book to read, then looked at the reviews here. And did I ever TAINT my own mind!
So I immediately started off wanting to hate it and call it misogynistic. But guess what? I actually DIDN'T hate it!
Okay, so it's not the Mona Lisa of YA, but really, I don't think it deserves the one and two star ratings.
Here's the biggest thing to remember about this dystopian world:
The role of women in this society is something society-created, not humanity-created.
What I mean by that is that this is a dystopia for a reason. Eve, Caleb and even Leif are all products of that particular society.
That being said, was Eve incredibly weak and annoying at times? Yes. Was her attitude around Caleb highly and annoying naive at times? Yes! But (and this is really true) she did everything with the best intentions.
Some of the worst things imaginable have started with the best intentions, but that is not the point here.
The point is I would judge a female character from this world acting like that harder than I judged Eve in her world.
AND I got say I thought she manned up there at the end. In the beginning she was deathly afraid of a man and by the end (NOT A SPOILER) she's pointing a gun at a man. AFTER all the death, etc she's seen. Come on, that takes some gutage.
And don't get me wrong. The premise of this book is quite appalling. I wouldn't call myself a feminist by definition, but the idea of women being a baby-factory is disgusting, demeaning, degrading and morally wrong. So don't think my defense of Eve's character, etc is stemming from some hyper-traditional beliefs. It's not.
But the story was well-written, there was good pacing, the characterization was good, and you know what? I think I will be checking out the sequel!
I did feel like certain things were rushed. Like her finding out about the baby-factory life, the escape and the relationship with Caleb (though I could argue myself on that one - being uber sheltered would lead to more extremist feelings when they came about).
Okay. Off my soapbox now!
October 21, 2011
I’ve just finished reading Eve and it was amazing.So touching and heartbreaking.I loved it.I coudn’t put this book down and I didn’t want it to end.I just can’t wait for the next novel.
November 4, 2011
Eve by Anna Carey is light on the world-building as dystopias go. It’s not one of those books that offer an incisive commentary on some aspect of our existing culture. It’s more, “here’s a setting where things suck; now we have a backdrop for a romance/adventure story.” That’s not inherently bad. It just makes it a fluffy read, rather than a chilling one. Eve doesn’t possess the depth of books like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (which Carey quotes in the front matter) or George Orwell’s 1984 or Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World or Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games. Even for a just-for-fun book, though, there are aspects of Eve’s world-building that don’t quite make sense.
The most jarring example is Eve’s education. Young orphan girls in Anna Carey’s “New America” are raised and educated to expect one kind of future, and then after graduation, are thrust into a completely different life than the one they were promised. This seems like an ineffective way to run an evil empire. Why do this bait and switch, which is expensive, time-consuming, pointless, and guaranteed to foster discontent? Why not just feed the girls propaganda about the life they’ll really have, selling it as a glorious mission?
Eve escapes the fate ordained for her at school, however, and finds herself on the lam. The rest of the novel follows her as she travels the ruins of the western United States looking for a safe haven. She makes an unlikely friend in a fellow runaway student, and also meets a boy and falls in love for the first time. If you’re looking for an exciting read about a girl and a boy falling in love while running from The Man, you may enjoy Eve.
For my part, though, I was irked. The illogic of the opening sequences got the book off to a bad start, and then I had issues with Eve as a character. She is a Mary Sue whose unique awesomeness is frequently touted. All the good guys love her. All the bad guys want to rape her, including the King of New America, whose obsession with a girl he’s never met is never really explained.
We are told of Eve’s selflessness, but her selfless acts are often told briefly or pushed offscreen. The behaviors we do see are frequently naïve (though this naiveté is understandable, to an extent) and selfish. My overall impression of Eve is that she does boneheaded things and then walks away unscathed while other people pay for her mistakes. If she learns a lesson, it’s the wrong lesson. At one point, she makes a mistake late at night. In the morning, she doesn’t confess to it until the evidence is discovered. Disaster follows. When Eve reflects on it later, she thinks, “It should’ve been the first thing I said when I awoke.” Not that she shouldn’t have done it, not that she should have asked and possibly learned a safer way to achieve her goal, not that she should have fessed up right after doing it — but that she should have said something earlier the following day.
The ending doesn’t seem to make much sense either. It feels, at first, like an out-of-character contrivance to create extra angst for book two. But on second thought, it fits pretty well with what we’ve seen of Eve so far.
The most jarring example is Eve’s education. Young orphan girls in Anna Carey’s “New America” are raised and educated to expect one kind of future, and then after graduation, are thrust into a completely different life than the one they were promised. This seems like an ineffective way to run an evil empire. Why do this bait and switch, which is expensive, time-consuming, pointless, and guaranteed to foster discontent? Why not just feed the girls propaganda about the life they’ll really have, selling it as a glorious mission?
Eve escapes the fate ordained for her at school, however, and finds herself on the lam. The rest of the novel follows her as she travels the ruins of the western United States looking for a safe haven. She makes an unlikely friend in a fellow runaway student, and also meets a boy and falls in love for the first time. If you’re looking for an exciting read about a girl and a boy falling in love while running from The Man, you may enjoy Eve.
For my part, though, I was irked. The illogic of the opening sequences got the book off to a bad start, and then I had issues with Eve as a character. She is a Mary Sue whose unique awesomeness is frequently touted. All the good guys love her. All the bad guys want to rape her, including the King of New America, whose obsession with a girl he’s never met is never really explained.
We are told of Eve’s selflessness, but her selfless acts are often told briefly or pushed offscreen. The behaviors we do see are frequently naïve (though this naiveté is understandable, to an extent) and selfish. My overall impression of Eve is that she does boneheaded things and then walks away unscathed while other people pay for her mistakes. If she learns a lesson, it’s the wrong lesson. At one point, she makes a mistake late at night. In the morning, she doesn’t confess to it until the evidence is discovered. Disaster follows. When Eve reflects on it later, she thinks, “It should’ve been the first thing I said when I awoke.” Not that she shouldn’t have done it, not that she should have asked and possibly learned a safer way to achieve her goal, not that she should have fessed up right after doing it — but that she should have said something earlier the following day.
The ending doesn’t seem to make much sense either. It feels, at first, like an out-of-character contrivance to create extra angst for book two. But on second thought, it fits pretty well with what we’ve seen of Eve so far.
October 26, 2022
Necesitaba para el reto Popsugar un libro con un palíndromo como título, no en el título sino como título entero así que estaba la cosa muy restringida.
Encontré Eve, el primer libro de una distopía juvenil que consta de 3 tomos. Estos libros siempre suelen ser entretenidos y fáciles de leer así que no lo dudé.
Eve es una chica que vive en un colegio orfanato junto con muchas otras chicas. Está en su último año preparando la fiesta de graduación en la que dará su discurso de mejor de la clase. Todas están felices, este año saldrán por primera vez del colegio tras la pandemia que asoló el mundo (últimamente escuchar cualquier cosa relacionada con pandemia da como cosilla ¿no creéis?) y se enfrentarán a su vida futura como mujeres de la Nueva América.
El día antes de la graduación Eve encuentra a una de sus compañeras intentando escapar y ésta le cuenta algunas cosas que Eve no puede creer. Pero, ¿Y si tiene razón? ¿Y si su destino no es tan bonito como lo pintan las profesoras?
Tras descubrir una aterradora realidad, Eve se escapará del colegio en busca de un futuro mejor. Durante el camino además de aprender a sobrevivir tendrá que lidiar contra los miedos que le han inculcado durante toda su vida escolar. En su huida conocerá a Caleb, ¡Un chico! El primero que ve en mucho, mucho tiempo… seguro que quiere hacerla daño, seguro que quiere engatusarla tal y como le contaron en la escuela…
Y hasta aquí puedo leer.
Es una historia sencilla que no nos presenta nada novedoso pero que es entretenida. Muy llenita de clichés distópicos, muy juvenil y que por supuesto deja un final muy abierto para la continuación de la saga.
¿Seguiré leyendo la saga? Pues así de primeras diría que no lo creo, pero nunca se sabe…
¿Lo recomiendo? Sí, a un público juvenil estoy segura de que le puede enganchar.
Want to read
January 24, 2012Never, ever , ever put a review from Lauren Kate on the front cover of your book.
Ever.
'cause I'm pretty sure she would find looking at a wall a fabulous, fast paced , gripping event. And if not? then she could always go write an actual book worth reading.
Despite your stupid mistake Anna Carey, I will give your book a try. Maybe I will actually like it, I mean the idea is obviously there.
But to be honest?
Anything Lauren Kate finds good, I will probably end up wanting to throw it in fire among where all her fallen books have began to rest.
- yeah, I really hate that ladies wiring.
Ever.
'cause I'm pretty sure she would find looking at a wall a fabulous, fast paced , gripping event. And if not? then she could always go write an actual book worth reading.
Despite your stupid mistake Anna Carey, I will give your book a try. Maybe I will actually like it, I mean the idea is obviously there.
But to be honest?
Anything Lauren Kate finds good, I will probably end up wanting to throw it in fire among where all her fallen books have began to rest.
- yeah, I really hate that ladies wiring.
April 14, 2013
Eve / 9780062048509
I picked up "Eve" from Amazon Vine because it was sold to me as a cross between "The Handmaid's Tale" (which I love) and "The Hunger Games" (which I also love). That was, as we will see, a dirty lie designed by marketers with black holes where their souls should be. And now I'm stuck having to write a review for a book that I flung to the ground in disgust at about the halfway point. However! I am nothing if not interested in helping potential buyers decide whether or not to spend their hard-earned money on a book, so here is my Very Useful Summary of the first third or so -- if you like this, PRESS THAT BUY BUTTON NOW.
EVE: It's the evening before graduation, where I will present the valedictorian speech because I am the smartest girl in the entire world! Which is not terribly hard because 98% of the population was wiped out by a plague, but still. Also, I have no personality whatsoever besides being naive, obedient, and utterly unsuited for a dystopian environment, and am therefore intended to be a generic blank for the reader to sink into.
ARDEN: Hi! I'm the social outcast of the school and everyone rightfully mistrusts me because I lie and cheat and bully people! I have a personality, though, so you'll wish I was your protagonist instead of Meaningful-Name-Eve over there. I'm going to flee the walled school because graduates aren't sent to college; they're strapped to beds and forced to churn out babies in startlingly unsafe conditions considering how valuable they are as baby makers.
EVE: I don't believe you because that makes no sense: why would they teach us waltz and Russian literature if that were true? (NOTE: This really does make NO SENSE.) But despite the fact that you are an established liar, I'm going to break out of the dormitory, nearly break my foot, nearly drown, and get my hands torn to shreds on thorns JUST TO BE SURE. ... Oh, crap, she's right. Welp, nothing for it but to escape -- I'll go get my best friend.
TEACHER: Halt! Oh, Eve, I see you've decided to escape. I'll help you, but there's no time to get your best friend.
EVE: OK, if you say so.
TEACHER: I do. Oh, but go into the crowded dormitory and pack everything you own including the last letter your mother wrote for you before she died. Wouldn't want to leave that behind.
EVE: Of course not. I have priorities. And I'll try not to trip over my sleeping best friend while I pack. [later] Wow, it's really hard to find food and water when I've only ever been trained in waltz and Russian literature. Oh! Arden! Can I come along with you, despite the fact that my presence will hinder you and possibly get us both killed?
ARDEN: Sure, but I'll glower at you while the reader again wishes that I were the point-of-view character instead of you who are so impractical you refuse to use blankets if they've had a dead person touching them.
EVE: While you hunt food for me, I'll just wander off into this Walmart. Oh! A baby bear! Baby bears are dangerous; I know that much. But it looks like Winnie the Pooh. (NOTE: I am not making this up.) I'll just pet him for a bit. Oh! Look at the plot twist that is so obvious a dead man would have foreseen it: an angry bear mother. Whatever will I do?
CALEB: Hi. I'm a literal savior riding a literal horse. Sadly, though, I am not the Old Spice guy.
EVE: Er, how do you feed and shoe and nurture a horse in a dystopia?
CALEB: Look, just get on so we can escape the bear.
EVE: 'K. Don't rape me, though.
CALEB: I'm not interested.
EVE: WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE NOT INTERESTED. "The plague had killed far more females than males. As one of the few women in The New America, especially an educated, civilized woman, I'd always supposed I was every man's type. [...] I was intelligent, I worked hard. I was told I was beautiful. I was Eve, the valedictorian of School." (NOTE: That is a direct quote in the context of Eve being offended at being told by Caleb that she's "not [his] type" immediately after she's been indoctrinated her whole life -- and been worried for the entirety of the book -- that all men are degenerate rapists.)
...and that was when I threw the book at the wall, because if Eve thinks that rape is a compliment, then she's officially too stupid to live. (Also, I'm pretty sure the book maintains this rape-is-a-compliment theme, since -- if I gather correctly -- the King of America will decide that Eve will be his own personal baby-maker, come heels or high water. BECAUSE SHE IS JUST THAT SPECIAL. Obviously.)
The one good thing I can say about "Eve" is that it demonstrates how not to write a YA dystopia. Eve has no discernible personality underneath her whiny naivete, and it occurs to me that one of the reasons why I love Katniss Everdeen so much is because she's a distinct person -- she's not a blank for me to sink into, but an actual character worth following in her own right. And in "The Handmaid's Tale" -- which "Eve" wants to be so much it hurts -- Offred's gaps in her personality was part of the point; society was doing its best to strip her self away and that was a tragedy, not something for an author to aspire to.
While I don't demand walls of text to explain world-building in my dystopias, I do require the setting to at least make sense. The hand-wave for why a tremendous amount of resources are sunk into the girls' education is quite ridiculous; the Latin and Russian lessons were supposed to keep them occupied so they wouldn't become suspicious (and would make them erudite protagonists, obviously). The fact that a HUGE number of years and resources are invested into these girls only to then keep them in unhygienic conditions that I *guarantee* would have them dead in a few years flat cannot be chalked up to the Bad Guys being evil and stupid; the system literally should have collapsed on itself before we even get to Eve.
And if it had, we all would have been spared a lot of bother.
NOTE: This review is based on a free Advance Review Copy of this book provided through Amazon Vine, and which I am required to review as a participant of the program.
~ Ana Mardoll
I picked up "Eve" from Amazon Vine because it was sold to me as a cross between "The Handmaid's Tale" (which I love) and "The Hunger Games" (which I also love). That was, as we will see, a dirty lie designed by marketers with black holes where their souls should be. And now I'm stuck having to write a review for a book that I flung to the ground in disgust at about the halfway point. However! I am nothing if not interested in helping potential buyers decide whether or not to spend their hard-earned money on a book, so here is my Very Useful Summary of the first third or so -- if you like this, PRESS THAT BUY BUTTON NOW.
EVE: It's the evening before graduation, where I will present the valedictorian speech because I am the smartest girl in the entire world! Which is not terribly hard because 98% of the population was wiped out by a plague, but still. Also, I have no personality whatsoever besides being naive, obedient, and utterly unsuited for a dystopian environment, and am therefore intended to be a generic blank for the reader to sink into.
ARDEN: Hi! I'm the social outcast of the school and everyone rightfully mistrusts me because I lie and cheat and bully people! I have a personality, though, so you'll wish I was your protagonist instead of Meaningful-Name-Eve over there. I'm going to flee the walled school because graduates aren't sent to college; they're strapped to beds and forced to churn out babies in startlingly unsafe conditions considering how valuable they are as baby makers.
EVE: I don't believe you because that makes no sense: why would they teach us waltz and Russian literature if that were true? (NOTE: This really does make NO SENSE.) But despite the fact that you are an established liar, I'm going to break out of the dormitory, nearly break my foot, nearly drown, and get my hands torn to shreds on thorns JUST TO BE SURE. ... Oh, crap, she's right. Welp, nothing for it but to escape -- I'll go get my best friend.
TEACHER: Halt! Oh, Eve, I see you've decided to escape. I'll help you, but there's no time to get your best friend.
EVE: OK, if you say so.
TEACHER: I do. Oh, but go into the crowded dormitory and pack everything you own including the last letter your mother wrote for you before she died. Wouldn't want to leave that behind.
EVE: Of course not. I have priorities. And I'll try not to trip over my sleeping best friend while I pack. [later] Wow, it's really hard to find food and water when I've only ever been trained in waltz and Russian literature. Oh! Arden! Can I come along with you, despite the fact that my presence will hinder you and possibly get us both killed?
ARDEN: Sure, but I'll glower at you while the reader again wishes that I were the point-of-view character instead of you who are so impractical you refuse to use blankets if they've had a dead person touching them.
EVE: While you hunt food for me, I'll just wander off into this Walmart. Oh! A baby bear! Baby bears are dangerous; I know that much. But it looks like Winnie the Pooh. (NOTE: I am not making this up.) I'll just pet him for a bit. Oh! Look at the plot twist that is so obvious a dead man would have foreseen it: an angry bear mother. Whatever will I do?
CALEB: Hi. I'm a literal savior riding a literal horse. Sadly, though, I am not the Old Spice guy.
EVE: Er, how do you feed and shoe and nurture a horse in a dystopia?
CALEB: Look, just get on so we can escape the bear.
EVE: 'K. Don't rape me, though.
CALEB: I'm not interested.
EVE: WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE NOT INTERESTED. "The plague had killed far more females than males. As one of the few women in The New America, especially an educated, civilized woman, I'd always supposed I was every man's type. [...] I was intelligent, I worked hard. I was told I was beautiful. I was Eve, the valedictorian of School." (NOTE: That is a direct quote in the context of Eve being offended at being told by Caleb that she's "not [his] type" immediately after she's been indoctrinated her whole life -- and been worried for the entirety of the book -- that all men are degenerate rapists.)
...and that was when I threw the book at the wall, because if Eve thinks that rape is a compliment, then she's officially too stupid to live. (Also, I'm pretty sure the book maintains this rape-is-a-compliment theme, since -- if I gather correctly -- the King of America will decide that Eve will be his own personal baby-maker, come heels or high water. BECAUSE SHE IS JUST THAT SPECIAL. Obviously.)
The one good thing I can say about "Eve" is that it demonstrates how not to write a YA dystopia. Eve has no discernible personality underneath her whiny naivete, and it occurs to me that one of the reasons why I love Katniss Everdeen so much is because she's a distinct person -- she's not a blank for me to sink into, but an actual character worth following in her own right. And in "The Handmaid's Tale" -- which "Eve" wants to be so much it hurts -- Offred's gaps in her personality was part of the point; society was doing its best to strip her self away and that was a tragedy, not something for an author to aspire to.
While I don't demand walls of text to explain world-building in my dystopias, I do require the setting to at least make sense. The hand-wave for why a tremendous amount of resources are sunk into the girls' education is quite ridiculous; the Latin and Russian lessons were supposed to keep them occupied so they wouldn't become suspicious (and would make them erudite protagonists, obviously). The fact that a HUGE number of years and resources are invested into these girls only to then keep them in unhygienic conditions that I *guarantee* would have them dead in a few years flat cannot be chalked up to the Bad Guys being evil and stupid; the system literally should have collapsed on itself before we even get to Eve.
And if it had, we all would have been spared a lot of bother.
NOTE: This review is based on a free Advance Review Copy of this book provided through Amazon Vine, and which I am required to review as a participant of the program.
~ Ana Mardoll
September 2, 2011
You see, the trouble with the recent spate of dystopian novels (in the YA genre) is that after the initial two or three, they all start to blur into one another. Here's some advice for other budding writers out there from a voracious reader: If you are going to attempt to tell a story that is very similar to one that has already been told (and told spectacularly) either try to do something entirely different with the subject or better yet, write something entirely different. This is the problem I had with Wither and it's the same problem I have with Eve. You see, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood has already told the story of women being stripped of humanity and treated as wombs on two legs. And it has told that story in such a way that it will make the reader, especially the female ones, very, very aware of what could happen were their hard won freedom taken away. We are talking about a total loss of personal freedom here, people. Anyway, let's move on to Eve.
A trilogy is a story that is told in three books, yes, but all three books contain three separate stories. Each installment in the trilogy serves to narrate the complex threads of the plot and move the plot forward but EACH BOOK HAS A COMPLETE STORY. Eve reads like one third of a story. So one third of a book. One third of a book in a trilogy. Nothing happens in it. Nothing of any meaning. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nothing.
It drove me slightly batty. In case you can't tell.
This is not to suggest there are no good parts. There are. Definitely. I liked the budding friendship between Eve and her arch-nemesis; fight for survival tends to make people into friends. And the writing flows well enough. The world building is on the right track and the logic is actually sound. There's no sense of facts being cobbled together to force a story as in Wither. It's just that the characterization suffers. I mean, Eve is certainly not offensive. Nope. Unless stupidity is an offense. In which case, she might get life imprisonment. Her actions towards the end are just so...stupid. Honestly. I couldn't believe that she does what she did. And she got over the dire consequences of her actions so easily that it boggled my mind. That was not a good move on the author's part. I don't think so. The main character is not supposed to evoke eye rolling from the reader.
The romance seems forced. For a girl who has been told all her life that love and romance are evil and bad for you and men are of the same ilk as monsters, Eve gets over it really quickly. Even the expected conflict between the two are forced. It's just a bit "what?" with a large dose of "huh" thrown in for good measure.
I don't know, guys. Three quarters of the book seemed readable and then bam! It didn't. So. Yeah. Make up your own mind. (Or, you know, you could read The Handmaid's Tale.)
A trilogy is a story that is told in three books, yes, but all three books contain three separate stories. Each installment in the trilogy serves to narrate the complex threads of the plot and move the plot forward but EACH BOOK HAS A COMPLETE STORY. Eve reads like one third of a story. So one third of a book. One third of a book in a trilogy. Nothing happens in it. Nothing of any meaning. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nothing.
It drove me slightly batty. In case you can't tell.
This is not to suggest there are no good parts. There are. Definitely. I liked the budding friendship between Eve and her arch-nemesis; fight for survival tends to make people into friends. And the writing flows well enough. The world building is on the right track and the logic is actually sound. There's no sense of facts being cobbled together to force a story as in Wither. It's just that the characterization suffers. I mean, Eve is certainly not offensive. Nope. Unless stupidity is an offense. In which case, she might get life imprisonment. Her actions towards the end are just so...stupid. Honestly. I couldn't believe that she does what she did. And she got over the dire consequences of her actions so easily that it boggled my mind. That was not a good move on the author's part. I don't think so. The main character is not supposed to evoke eye rolling from the reader.
The romance seems forced. For a girl who has been told all her life that love and romance are evil and bad for you and men are of the same ilk as monsters, Eve gets over it really quickly. Even the expected conflict between the two are forced. It's just a bit "what?" with a large dose of "huh" thrown in for good measure.
I don't know, guys. Three quarters of the book seemed readable and then bam! It didn't. So. Yeah. Make up your own mind. (Or, you know, you could read The Handmaid's Tale.)
July 17, 2011
2.5/5
There's potential here, but what comes to mind right now is Handmaid's Tale, even Wither. Except Eve is a pale version of those. Where all three possess elements of a society being rebuilt on the backs of unwanted, Eve lacks the deeper emotions and awareness that Handmaid's has; it also lacks the seamless, lush writing that Wither possesses. That said, Eve isn't a bad story despite some of the clumsy dialogue and sudden/abrupt shifts because right now it feels like to ended too soon.
Eve's story starts where most stories like these do: a girl relatively happy (and ignorant) with how things are. But that's quick to change because after seeing how things are going to be, she runs... and finds herself in a place where she does not know what to do, with a vague goal of getting somewhere else.
And I think this is where my problems with Eve start. Everything is so vague. Her world, her history is bare, I knew little of it and what little that is known is still too bare (for my liking.) That after a plague destroyed nearly everything, rebuilding was done mainly through those orphaned. That while girls were broodmares, boys labored. That while they toiled, a new City was built, protected by soldiers of a New America. Of course there were those too old or too opposed, but we got little exposure of them. In the end? I simply wanted to see more than Caleb and Eve's love develop (which did develop. And I'm not saying that this development was a bad thing becasue, at least there was something tackled beyond a glance.)
World building is thin. Like Eve, we no little of what was and know even less about what is. Character development also leaves a lot desired. Both these could have been tackled a bit more. The parts that are absolutely clear is that there's a girl on the run with a boy who knows a bit more than she does. Their companionship goes to the next stage. A lot of chasing and an ending that's not happy but designed to push through to the sequel. As I said, while Eve is far from perfect, there's potential here, so much so that I'm likely to read the rest.
*Thanks NetGalley!
There's potential here, but what comes to mind right now is Handmaid's Tale, even Wither. Except Eve is a pale version of those. Where all three possess elements of a society being rebuilt on the backs of unwanted, Eve lacks the deeper emotions and awareness that Handmaid's has; it also lacks the seamless, lush writing that Wither possesses. That said, Eve isn't a bad story despite some of the clumsy dialogue and sudden/abrupt shifts because right now it feels like to ended too soon.
Eve's story starts where most stories like these do: a girl relatively happy (and ignorant) with how things are. But that's quick to change because after seeing how things are going to be, she runs... and finds herself in a place where she does not know what to do, with a vague goal of getting somewhere else.
And I think this is where my problems with Eve start. Everything is so vague. Her world, her history is bare, I knew little of it and what little that is known is still too bare (for my liking.) That after a plague destroyed nearly everything, rebuilding was done mainly through those orphaned. That while girls were broodmares, boys labored. That while they toiled, a new City was built, protected by soldiers of a New America. Of course there were those too old or too opposed, but we got little exposure of them. In the end? I simply wanted to see more than Caleb and Eve's love develop (which did develop. And I'm not saying that this development was a bad thing becasue, at least there was something tackled beyond a glance.)
World building is thin. Like Eve, we no little of what was and know even less about what is. Character development also leaves a lot desired. Both these could have been tackled a bit more. The parts that are absolutely clear is that there's a girl on the run with a boy who knows a bit more than she does. Their companionship goes to the next stage. A lot of chasing and an ending that's not happy but designed to push through to the sequel. As I said, while Eve is far from perfect, there's potential here, so much so that I'm likely to read the rest.
*Thanks NetGalley!
February 16, 2016
For being a young adult book, I really enjoyed this story. Yes, there were times that I wanted to slug Eve for the stupid decisions she made but I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt because of how innocent and naive she was raised....but....come on....some things were just unforgivable.
I got on this genre by spending my whole weekend watching The 100 episodes from the beginning and just had to read more stories like it.
Am I going to read the next book in this series? I'm not sure yet...I did start it but Eve started getting on my nerves again and my heart broke in the very beginning with something that happened...so I'm putting it on hold for now.
I got on this genre by spending my whole weekend watching The 100 episodes from the beginning and just had to read more stories like it.
Am I going to read the next book in this series? I'm not sure yet...I did start it but Eve started getting on my nerves again and my heart broke in the very beginning with something that happened...so I'm putting it on hold for now.
December 1, 2022
This is a fast-paced young adult dystopian romance that has romance, suspense, and lots of heartbreak.
I adored the storyline, even though parts of it felt familiar, as I’ve read a lot of dystopian YA books in my day. Some parts seemed specifically orchestrated to make me cry uncontrollably, but I can’t even be mad because it hurt so good.
Some reviews are complaining about the plot holes, but I really don’t think you can say that the author not explaining the source of the pandemic, etc. in the first book of a trilogy in which one of the main themes is how the seemingly educated heroine has been lied to her whole life can really count as a plot hole. She’s discovering what the world is truly like for herself. The classic books that she was taught in school were all selected to skew her perception of the outside world and men in general. If these questions aren’t answered by the third book, I would say they’re major plot holes. But at this point? They’re just one more thing to compel me to continue reading the series!
The only thing that I really did find annoying about the book and made me bump it down a star is the heroine. I understood that she’s arrogant and has her warped worldview at the beginning of the book, and I actually loved that, even if it made her a little unlikable. My issue is with how, while street smarts definitely don’t equate booksmarts, she’s really quite daft. She makes similar mistakes throughout the book. Some of them have devastating consequences. I honestly don’t know how she’ll be able to live with herself with the guilt of just how callous some of her choices were, and how they ruined the lives of people she cared about. Even her decision at the very end of the book, which leads to the massive cliffhanger, had me scratching my head. Has she learned nothing in this book? Spoiler under the spoiler tag.
All in all, this book was unputdownable, and I can’t wait to read the others, and I hope that Eve starts to learn from her mistakes in the second installment!
POPSUGAR Reading Challenge 2022: This book fulfills the "A book with a palindromic title" category.
I adored the storyline, even though parts of it felt familiar, as I’ve read a lot of dystopian YA books in my day. Some parts seemed specifically orchestrated to make me cry uncontrollably, but I can’t even be mad because it hurt so good.
Some reviews are complaining about the plot holes, but I really don’t think you can say that the author not explaining the source of the pandemic, etc. in the first book of a trilogy in which one of the main themes is how the seemingly educated heroine has been lied to her whole life can really count as a plot hole. She’s discovering what the world is truly like for herself. The classic books that she was taught in school were all selected to skew her perception of the outside world and men in general. If these questions aren’t answered by the third book, I would say they’re major plot holes. But at this point? They’re just one more thing to compel me to continue reading the series!
The only thing that I really did find annoying about the book and made me bump it down a star is the heroine. I understood that she’s arrogant and has her warped worldview at the beginning of the book, and I actually loved that, even if it made her a little unlikable. My issue is with how, while street smarts definitely don’t equate booksmarts, she’s really quite daft. She makes similar mistakes throughout the book. Some of them have devastating consequences. I honestly don’t know how she’ll be able to live with herself with the guilt of just how callous some of her choices were, and how they ruined the lives of people she cared about. Even her decision at the very end of the book, which leads to the massive cliffhanger, had me scratching my head. Has she learned nothing in this book? Spoiler under the spoiler tag.
All in all, this book was unputdownable, and I can’t wait to read the others, and I hope that Eve starts to learn from her mistakes in the second installment!
POPSUGAR Reading Challenge 2022: This book fulfills the "A book with a palindromic title" category.
May 10, 2012
Quick review
Cover: Interesting
Rating PG
Thumbs Up 3.5
Overall: Frustrating.
Characters: Well written
Plot: Certainly interesting
Page Turner: Kind of
Series Cont.? Maybe
Recommend Maybe
Book Boyfriend: Caleb
SUMMARY (50 words or less)
Eve's story was different and compelling. Even though there were trouble points in the story/writing at times, I find myself interested enough to read more. My heart wrenched at the end and I have to say, Eve wasn't my favorite person at that point.
To see my full review and pic, check out my blog post below.
http://mybookboyfriend.blogspot.com/2...
Audio Review
Tavia Gilbert is better known to me as the narrator of the Night Huntress series. And she didn’t disappoint in this series. In fact I think she helped keep me interested. Her voices were spot on how I would expect to hear them. Again, I was able to discern all the characters. Great job.
Cover: Interesting
Rating PG
Thumbs Up 3.5
Overall: Frustrating.
Characters: Well written
Plot: Certainly interesting
Page Turner: Kind of
Series Cont.? Maybe
Recommend Maybe
Book Boyfriend: Caleb
SUMMARY (50 words or less)
Eve's story was different and compelling. Even though there were trouble points in the story/writing at times, I find myself interested enough to read more. My heart wrenched at the end and I have to say, Eve wasn't my favorite person at that point.
To see my full review and pic, check out my blog post below.
http://mybookboyfriend.blogspot.com/2...
Audio Review
Tavia Gilbert is better known to me as the narrator of the Night Huntress series. And she didn’t disappoint in this series. In fact I think she helped keep me interested. Her voices were spot on how I would expect to hear them. Again, I was able to discern all the characters. Great job.
September 15, 2011
http://livetoread-krystal.blogspot.co...
This book begins with a sad letter from a desperate mother to her daughter, Eve. The letter is informative for the reader, telling of a terrible plague that will soon claim the mother's life and the mother's unshakable hope for her daughter's future. Flash forward to present day, much older, Eve; Eve is one of the brightest, prettiest, and inquisitive girls in her "School." The School contains girls who are supposedly there for intellectual purposes...although the knowledge they are given, especially regarding the male gender, is often far from the truth. The School twists how the male gender is in everyday life, describing men as dangerous sex fiends who are evil and do nothing but harm the female populace. The reader will later learn that this false information is taught to the girls in the hopes that they will be led like sheep to the slaughter when it comes to birthing children...they will be cowed into submission.
Eve wants more from life, she expects to be a muralist. She finds out, by accident, that the so-called graduates from her School are held and forced into multiple pregnancies. She is lucky enough to run into a teacher who forces her to leave the School's grounds and run towards Califia, a place that will be safe for Eve.
Nothing ever goes as planned, Eve wanders around with no real clue as to where she should start for a few days before running into Arden, a girl she knew from the School who had apparently ran away as well. Arden and Eve do not particularly get along in the beginning of the novel, though their attitudes will change when push comes to shove and they end up as friends. Arden and Eve continue on together until they run into Caleb, a boy who Eve at first fears. He takes them back to a place filled with boys of all ages after they discover that the King himself is searching for Eve, the reason which Eve later finds out that she was to be his brood mare. A series of events has Eve on the run again...can she make it to Califia?
Caleb is charismatic, protective, and rugged. He becomes a very important person to Eve. Eve is brave, inquisitive, smart, and caring. She ends up acting as a mother figure to several of the smaller boys she meets via Caleb. Arden is a tough cookie, but even she learns the value of a friend and reciprocates. The other secondary characters in the novel vary widely, the reader will like some and hate others.
The plot is phenomenal, a plague killing off the majority of the world's population. Dystopian novels are becoming more and more popular, but this one stands out from the rest. The events are exciting and fast-paced, the characters will seem very real to the reader, and the ending is a huge cliff-hanger that leads up to the next book in this trilogy! This book is recommended to teens/young adults who enjoy dystopian novels mixed with romance and action.
This book begins with a sad letter from a desperate mother to her daughter, Eve. The letter is informative for the reader, telling of a terrible plague that will soon claim the mother's life and the mother's unshakable hope for her daughter's future. Flash forward to present day, much older, Eve; Eve is one of the brightest, prettiest, and inquisitive girls in her "School." The School contains girls who are supposedly there for intellectual purposes...although the knowledge they are given, especially regarding the male gender, is often far from the truth. The School twists how the male gender is in everyday life, describing men as dangerous sex fiends who are evil and do nothing but harm the female populace. The reader will later learn that this false information is taught to the girls in the hopes that they will be led like sheep to the slaughter when it comes to birthing children...they will be cowed into submission.
Eve wants more from life, she expects to be a muralist. She finds out, by accident, that the so-called graduates from her School are held and forced into multiple pregnancies. She is lucky enough to run into a teacher who forces her to leave the School's grounds and run towards Califia, a place that will be safe for Eve.
Nothing ever goes as planned, Eve wanders around with no real clue as to where she should start for a few days before running into Arden, a girl she knew from the School who had apparently ran away as well. Arden and Eve do not particularly get along in the beginning of the novel, though their attitudes will change when push comes to shove and they end up as friends. Arden and Eve continue on together until they run into Caleb, a boy who Eve at first fears. He takes them back to a place filled with boys of all ages after they discover that the King himself is searching for Eve, the reason which Eve later finds out that she was to be his brood mare. A series of events has Eve on the run again...can she make it to Califia?
Caleb is charismatic, protective, and rugged. He becomes a very important person to Eve. Eve is brave, inquisitive, smart, and caring. She ends up acting as a mother figure to several of the smaller boys she meets via Caleb. Arden is a tough cookie, but even she learns the value of a friend and reciprocates. The other secondary characters in the novel vary widely, the reader will like some and hate others.
The plot is phenomenal, a plague killing off the majority of the world's population. Dystopian novels are becoming more and more popular, but this one stands out from the rest. The events are exciting and fast-paced, the characters will seem very real to the reader, and the ending is a huge cliff-hanger that leads up to the next book in this trilogy! This book is recommended to teens/young adults who enjoy dystopian novels mixed with romance and action.
April 2, 2016
Had heard some not so encouraging things about this book, I was a bit doubtful if you start reading it but something told me I had to do it, first ... THAT COVER IS BEAUTIFUL !, and second THAT STORY that I found very original!
So, I decided to read it ,went for the truth and I can not be happier than my decision ....
The story as I said before is something I had never read before this apocalyptic world where democracy existed ,now fifteen years later is under the command of a king, a man who thinks that for some sick reason, it is a good idea hold adolescent girls constantly pregnant ... who are lured with promising ideas for future studies .... CRAZY !.
Then the characters ...
Eve, that is certainly the smartest girl in her high school and she is very excited about the graduation day until you discover the truth about what was happening when you leave there and decides escape ....
To me I loved this character is me a little naive at first and in the finish too hahaha think it's a lovable character and I hope to grow in the following books.
Caleb: It's a boy wrestler, handsome and super genuinely concerned for others I love it !!! and his relationship with Eve they has conquered me pure and real:) ... I died laughing every time Caleb says something who she do not understand, they are adorable!
Arden: because you can never miss the best friend who kicks butt , to beginning I thought it would be a problem and I did not like but is a character which is very easy to love through the book
Marjorie & Otis: flag to true love: 3 just broke my heart.
So nothing more to say than I have enjoyed reading this history and I have been flown the time on it, excited to continue :)
March 12, 2020
I liked this book. This was the first dystopian book that I've read. I can not say that is the best dystopian series, but is based on an intersting idea about a sensitive girl who chooses to run to save her life. Is an easy and enjoyable reading.
* * *
After reading this book in the autumn of 2016 I realised that the world building was quite poorly done and Eve isn't exactly a kick ass heroine, is more the classical dystopian heroine which realise her world is full of lies, but in the first two books she's pretty enjoyable as a main character. If i compare the Eve from the first book in this series with Lena from the book one ((Delirium series) I must confess that i enjoyed her more than Lena Halloway.
P.S I liked Lena in Pandemonium and Requiem, more than i liked Eve in the last two books, anyways i think Eve and Lena are pretty similar to each other, even if Lena becomes more badass in the last two books.
* * *
After reading this book in the autumn of 2016 I realised that the world building was quite poorly done and Eve isn't exactly a kick ass heroine, is more the classical dystopian heroine which realise her world is full of lies, but in the first two books she's pretty enjoyable as a main character. If i compare the Eve from the first book in this series with Lena from the book one ((Delirium series) I must confess that i enjoyed her more than Lena Halloway.
P.S I liked Lena in Pandemonium and Requiem, more than i liked Eve in the last two books, anyways i think Eve and Lena are pretty similar to each other, even if Lena becomes more badass in the last two books.
August 3, 2012
This review shares a lot of early plot detail you might not want to know before reading the book.
On the eve of her graduation from School, Eve believes a golden future awaits her. At the top of her class, awarded the Medal of Achievement, she looks across the lake to the high blank wall of the building next door, where she and all the other girls at School will live for four years while they learn the trade of their choice, making them into contributing citizens for the King's City of Sand in New America. Eve's dream, her plan and ambition, is to be an artist. Like all the girls at School, they're eager for the following day, to start the next phase of their lives that will lead to them moving to the City of Sand.
Everything Eve understands about her life is turned upside down when she learns the truth from Arden, a difficult girl no one likes who Eve catches attempting an escape from School. There's no training within those walls, only breeding. With 98% of the population dead because of a plague, the King houses these orphan girls at Schools across his territory, educating them but also teaching them how evil and untrustworthy men are, in the belief that this will make them more willing to be artificially inseminated.
What Eve learns when she makes a midnight trek across the lake and looks inside the windows of the building next door is enough to terrify her: girls she recognises from previous graduating years, strapped to hospital beds, sedated or screaming, their bellies grotesquely huge. Made to have baby after baby, their life expectancy isn't long. The horrific truth sends Eve running out into the wilderness, a land of mercenary soldiers, the King's army, and roaming wild animals. The only thing guiding her is her sympathetic Teacher's advice: to follow the road to Califia, a settlement outside the King's control.
Eve has never had to fend for herself before. She's book smart, but knows nothing about survival. She can't start a fire, or hunt, or know how to find shelter. When she finds Arden it is with heartfelt relief that she begs to stay with the other, more resourceful girl. Used to being on her own, Arden doesn't need Eve, but perhaps the company is more attractive than being on your own in this dangerous land.
When Eve encounters a boy on a horse, her expectation is to be raped - that is, after all, what they were taught at school. But time and again she finds that not everything they were taught is true, and the boy - Caleb - becomes more than a friend. But living in an underground warren with a group of mostly wild orphan boys, all escaped from the King's work camps, brings more fear than security. Caleb's home is a stopping point on the road to Califia, but can Eve leave Caleb? Will she have a choice, now that the King has put a bounty on her head?
There were many things to like and enjoy about this novel, especially the characterisation of Eve who is aptly named. Beginning with a quote from The Handmaid's Tale about ignorance and knowledge, Carey has skilfully created a character who thinks she knows everything and is content and comfortable in her knowledge, only to discover just how ignorant she is, and how dangerous that can be. Because we the reader know so much more than Eve (even if we don't know how to hunt our own food), we can feel protective and sympathetic toward her. She isn't stupid in her ignorance, just naïve, and vulnerable, and a bit slow on the uptake. Coming from a sheltered world where she lived and breathed a certain kind of propaganda, Eve's story is a true coming-of-age one. She has every lesson to learn.
In terms of world-building, Carey was wise to keep it simple and the story holds firm in most areas. Where it is shakiest - and other reviewers have noted this as well - is in regards to the plague. The plague occurred in Eve's lifetime, and she was a child of five when her mother, dying of the plague, gave her into the care of the new government before she died. (On a side note, Eve's few memories of her mother are mostly of being given away, and she has a final letter from her mother: this part of Eve's story always made me feel unbearably sad whenever it came up, as well as thinking of the countless orphans in this new world. As a new mother, it touches me to the quick. It was never overly dramatic or self-indulgent, which would have had quite a different effect on me; Carey is good at not over-doing it.) There is mention of a vaccination that instead made people more susceptible to catching the plague, but either no one does actually know anything about it or the King has suppressed it: Eve's ignorance about the plague feels like a brick wall to our understanding of this new world order.
What gets confusing is the issue of time. A lot has been achieved in a short period of time, considering how few people are left. I'm unclear when it started and when - and how - it ended. It seemed to end abruptly, with no trace of the plague left. This leads me to think in terms of a conspiracy: that it was engineered or something like that. Narrated in Eve's voice, we only know as much as Eve does, and that's not a lot. Still, a general oppressive atmosphere that reminds me of older stories pervades, with the City of Sand looming large in our imaginations even if we never get to see it. Carey kept her post-apocalyptic world simple, and her dystopian regime even simpler (so far), and that means you don't get side-tracked by confusing details, or lack thereof. Still, there's a lot left to be explained, or discovered.
Some parts of the plot do stand on uncertain ground, like the idea of educating these orphans even though they'll never get to use it: it doesn't really work, especially considering it's a well-learned fact that it's easier to control people who are ignorant, who don't even realise they are being taken advantage of. They could have just as easily brainwashed these girls into believing they have a dazzling, important future as breeders, making them willing "sows" (as the boys and men out in the wilderness call them - apparently everyone knows about the breeding program except the girls themselves). Which would be better for their health than being strapped down, and better for the babies too. Having being pregnant, the idea of being strapped to a bed, especially at nine months' pregnant, sounds like torture to me (and by that stage it's almost painful to lie on your back). But Eve wouldn't have run away if she'd had said brainwashing - yet it would have made for an interesting, dark story, and a true dystopia.
This is a fairly predictable story, and it felt familiar the whole way through, like I'd read it before - in bits, like "this scene reminds me of X" and "this scene reminds me of something else". Not in a detrimental way; it read like a cohesive story, flowing well from adventure to adventure. But it wasn't all that original. But oh! How happy I was that it wasn't written in present tense! That is becoming a seriously over-used gimmick, made all the worse by writers who don't understand how to write in it. All the tension and in-the-moment suspense is here, in Carey's use of past tense, much more effective than if she'd used present. Thank you Anna Carey!
Caleb, one of the orphan boys who had escaped from the work camp, is the love interest, and a genuinely nice character. Not perfect, not too attractive, but quietly strong, considerate, caring. I really liked how the romance was handled: sweetly, complementing the story and characters, not overwhelming it in needless drama. There is some drama, and a big understanding, but it's so in tune with Eve's character that it worked as another stepping stone for her development - and she really does grow and change over the course of the story. By the end, she's a much stronger, resourceful young woman, still waking up to the world but much wiser, less naive now.
If you approach this novel as the work of a new author, as a debut YA dystopian, and you haven't read much in that genre, it delivers. If you approach it as an experienced reader of science fiction, dystopian and post-apocalytpic stories and you're looking for something invigorating, fresh, original and thematically rich, you'll probably be disappointed in this one. This is a great read for people new to speculative fiction, and post-apocalyptic dystopians in general, but beware of high expectations. It's a straight-forward coming-of-age story about a girl trying to survive in a harsh new world, learning about sacrifice as well as love. I'm not sure if I'll read the next book, Once - maybe if I didn't have so many other books to read I might. The ending was a bit anti-climactic for me, especially after all that drama, and I was disappointed by the path the plot had taken. I guess, right up to the very end, I was still hoping for something original to happen.
Oh, and I nearly forgot: I would have loved a map at the front of this book! I had no idea where Eve was going, I completely lost my sense of direction and was confused over whether she was going north, south, east or west (I thought at first just south, then west, but there were lots of references to north and ARRRGGHH! I was so lost!); where was School in relation to Lake Tahoe, where is Lake Tahoe, where is it in relation to the Golden Gate Bridge, the entrance to Califia? A map would have been really appreciated.
On the eve of her graduation from School, Eve believes a golden future awaits her. At the top of her class, awarded the Medal of Achievement, she looks across the lake to the high blank wall of the building next door, where she and all the other girls at School will live for four years while they learn the trade of their choice, making them into contributing citizens for the King's City of Sand in New America. Eve's dream, her plan and ambition, is to be an artist. Like all the girls at School, they're eager for the following day, to start the next phase of their lives that will lead to them moving to the City of Sand.
Everything Eve understands about her life is turned upside down when she learns the truth from Arden, a difficult girl no one likes who Eve catches attempting an escape from School. There's no training within those walls, only breeding. With 98% of the population dead because of a plague, the King houses these orphan girls at Schools across his territory, educating them but also teaching them how evil and untrustworthy men are, in the belief that this will make them more willing to be artificially inseminated.
What Eve learns when she makes a midnight trek across the lake and looks inside the windows of the building next door is enough to terrify her: girls she recognises from previous graduating years, strapped to hospital beds, sedated or screaming, their bellies grotesquely huge. Made to have baby after baby, their life expectancy isn't long. The horrific truth sends Eve running out into the wilderness, a land of mercenary soldiers, the King's army, and roaming wild animals. The only thing guiding her is her sympathetic Teacher's advice: to follow the road to Califia, a settlement outside the King's control.
Eve has never had to fend for herself before. She's book smart, but knows nothing about survival. She can't start a fire, or hunt, or know how to find shelter. When she finds Arden it is with heartfelt relief that she begs to stay with the other, more resourceful girl. Used to being on her own, Arden doesn't need Eve, but perhaps the company is more attractive than being on your own in this dangerous land.
When Eve encounters a boy on a horse, her expectation is to be raped - that is, after all, what they were taught at school. But time and again she finds that not everything they were taught is true, and the boy - Caleb - becomes more than a friend. But living in an underground warren with a group of mostly wild orphan boys, all escaped from the King's work camps, brings more fear than security. Caleb's home is a stopping point on the road to Califia, but can Eve leave Caleb? Will she have a choice, now that the King has put a bounty on her head?
There were many things to like and enjoy about this novel, especially the characterisation of Eve who is aptly named. Beginning with a quote from The Handmaid's Tale about ignorance and knowledge, Carey has skilfully created a character who thinks she knows everything and is content and comfortable in her knowledge, only to discover just how ignorant she is, and how dangerous that can be. Because we the reader know so much more than Eve (even if we don't know how to hunt our own food), we can feel protective and sympathetic toward her. She isn't stupid in her ignorance, just naïve, and vulnerable, and a bit slow on the uptake. Coming from a sheltered world where she lived and breathed a certain kind of propaganda, Eve's story is a true coming-of-age one. She has every lesson to learn.
During my life at School I always had Pip or Ruby by my side, calling me to supper or straightening my skirt when it was crooked. But for days in the wild, only the birds spoke to me. The stream was the only hand that touched me, the wind the only breath that blew the dust from my eyes. I learned the strange art of loneliness, the weathered yearning that swells and passes, swells and passes, when you walk a trail alone. [pp. 179-180]
In terms of world-building, Carey was wise to keep it simple and the story holds firm in most areas. Where it is shakiest - and other reviewers have noted this as well - is in regards to the plague. The plague occurred in Eve's lifetime, and she was a child of five when her mother, dying of the plague, gave her into the care of the new government before she died. (On a side note, Eve's few memories of her mother are mostly of being given away, and she has a final letter from her mother: this part of Eve's story always made me feel unbearably sad whenever it came up, as well as thinking of the countless orphans in this new world. As a new mother, it touches me to the quick. It was never overly dramatic or self-indulgent, which would have had quite a different effect on me; Carey is good at not over-doing it.) There is mention of a vaccination that instead made people more susceptible to catching the plague, but either no one does actually know anything about it or the King has suppressed it: Eve's ignorance about the plague feels like a brick wall to our understanding of this new world order.
What gets confusing is the issue of time. A lot has been achieved in a short period of time, considering how few people are left. I'm unclear when it started and when - and how - it ended. It seemed to end abruptly, with no trace of the plague left. This leads me to think in terms of a conspiracy: that it was engineered or something like that. Narrated in Eve's voice, we only know as much as Eve does, and that's not a lot. Still, a general oppressive atmosphere that reminds me of older stories pervades, with the City of Sand looming large in our imaginations even if we never get to see it. Carey kept her post-apocalyptic world simple, and her dystopian regime even simpler (so far), and that means you don't get side-tracked by confusing details, or lack thereof. Still, there's a lot left to be explained, or discovered.
Some parts of the plot do stand on uncertain ground, like the idea of educating these orphans even though they'll never get to use it: it doesn't really work, especially considering it's a well-learned fact that it's easier to control people who are ignorant, who don't even realise they are being taken advantage of. They could have just as easily brainwashed these girls into believing they have a dazzling, important future as breeders, making them willing "sows" (as the boys and men out in the wilderness call them - apparently everyone knows about the breeding program except the girls themselves). Which would be better for their health than being strapped down, and better for the babies too. Having being pregnant, the idea of being strapped to a bed, especially at nine months' pregnant, sounds like torture to me (and by that stage it's almost painful to lie on your back). But Eve wouldn't have run away if she'd had said brainwashing - yet it would have made for an interesting, dark story, and a true dystopia.
This is a fairly predictable story, and it felt familiar the whole way through, like I'd read it before - in bits, like "this scene reminds me of X" and "this scene reminds me of something else". Not in a detrimental way; it read like a cohesive story, flowing well from adventure to adventure. But it wasn't all that original. But oh! How happy I was that it wasn't written in present tense! That is becoming a seriously over-used gimmick, made all the worse by writers who don't understand how to write in it. All the tension and in-the-moment suspense is here, in Carey's use of past tense, much more effective than if she'd used present. Thank you Anna Carey!
Caleb, one of the orphan boys who had escaped from the work camp, is the love interest, and a genuinely nice character. Not perfect, not too attractive, but quietly strong, considerate, caring. I really liked how the romance was handled: sweetly, complementing the story and characters, not overwhelming it in needless drama. There is some drama, and a big understanding, but it's so in tune with Eve's character that it worked as another stepping stone for her development - and she really does grow and change over the course of the story. By the end, she's a much stronger, resourceful young woman, still waking up to the world but much wiser, less naive now.
If you approach this novel as the work of a new author, as a debut YA dystopian, and you haven't read much in that genre, it delivers. If you approach it as an experienced reader of science fiction, dystopian and post-apocalytpic stories and you're looking for something invigorating, fresh, original and thematically rich, you'll probably be disappointed in this one. This is a great read for people new to speculative fiction, and post-apocalyptic dystopians in general, but beware of high expectations. It's a straight-forward coming-of-age story about a girl trying to survive in a harsh new world, learning about sacrifice as well as love. I'm not sure if I'll read the next book, Once - maybe if I didn't have so many other books to read I might. The ending was a bit anti-climactic for me, especially after all that drama, and I was disappointed by the path the plot had taken. I guess, right up to the very end, I was still hoping for something original to happen.
Oh, and I nearly forgot: I would have loved a map at the front of this book! I had no idea where Eve was going, I completely lost my sense of direction and was confused over whether she was going north, south, east or west (I thought at first just south, then west, but there were lots of references to north and ARRRGGHH! I was so lost!); where was School in relation to Lake Tahoe, where is Lake Tahoe, where is it in relation to the Golden Gate Bridge, the entrance to Califia? A map would have been really appreciated.
May 29, 2019
Salgından kurtulup erkeklerden izole ve onları düşman bilerek yetiştirilen, mezun olacakları zaman güzel meslekler seçebilecekleri vaadiyle kandırılan küçük damızlık kızların olayını okuyoruz. Her şeyden bir haber hanım hanımcık eğitim alıyorlar, saf saf hayal kuruyorlar ama mezuniyetten bir gece önce buum! aslında her şeyin yalan olduğunu öğreniyorsun ve kaçmak için bir fırsat geçiyor eline arkadaşlarını uyaramadan sadece kendini kurtarabiliyorsun erkek milletini tam anlamıyla tanımıyorsun mahvolmuş bir dünyaya tek başına adım atıyorsun ve 16 yaşında küçük bir kızsın :(
Evet biraz daha detaya girilebilirdi eksikleri vardı ama ben çok sevdim karakterlerin yaşının küçük olması gözümü korkutsa da beklediğim gibi değildi gayet güzeldi. Karakterlerin ergence davrandığını söyleyip bundan rahatsız olmak da ne bileyim sonuçta dediğimiz gibi ergenler yani hele ki yaşadıklarına bakarsak bence gayet yerindeydi verdiği tepkiler buna takılmayalım bir şans verilebilir bence :)
Evet biraz daha detaya girilebilirdi eksikleri vardı ama ben çok sevdim karakterlerin yaşının küçük olması gözümü korkutsa da beklediğim gibi değildi gayet güzeldi. Karakterlerin ergence davrandığını söyleyip bundan rahatsız olmak da ne bileyim sonuçta dediğimiz gibi ergenler yani hele ki yaşadıklarına bakarsak bence gayet yerindeydi verdiği tepkiler buna takılmayalım bir şans verilebilir bence :)
November 28, 2013
Eve es una novela distópica juvenil con todos los ingredientes para enganchar. Tiene una trama original, unos personajes diferentes y un final contundente. Es una primera parte de trilogía que plantea una historia muy interesante.
La novela comienza cuando Eve descubre que su futuro es quedarse embarazada una vez tras otra para mantener a la raza humana, como el resto de mujeres. Y por ello decide huir. Es ahí cuando comienza la acción, nada más empezar el libro.
Ya el libro comienza de forma contundente y diferente.
Por otro lado la trama de este primer libro se nota introductoria, pero no por ello carece de una trama elaborada que enganche al lector. De hecho Eve comienza un viaje en la que la acompañaremos todos el tiempo.
"Love is just... caring about someone very deeply. Feeling like that person matters to you, like your whole world would be sadder without them in it."
Eve es un personaje que me ha gustado mucho, tiene una personalidad fuerte y es valiente. No duda en marcharse al descubrir el futuro que le queda por delante si no huye. Algo que le falta a Eve es una historia, pues conocemos poco de su pasado, sólo sabemos que es huérfana.
Me habría gustado saber qué vida llevaba en ese colegio y cómo era esa vida que le prometían para su futuro.
Caleb es un personaje que también me ha gustado. Que en este primer libro queda un poco al margen como personaje pero que juega un papel muy importante.
La autora nos describe cada situación con detalle pero no por ello convierte las descripciones en pesadas ni demasiado abundantes. Nos mete en el futuro destructivo de la raza humana, nos cuenta cómo son las ciudades destruidas por las que pasa Eve y cómo es la gente que encuentra más allá.
Me ha gustado mucho, es sumamente original dentro de todo lo que hay distópico, tiene una trama que engancha muchísimo y que deja con muchas ganas de leer Once...
Si pensáis leerlo en inglés recomiendo tener un nivel un poco fluido, pues no tiene un inglés básico ni simple para empezar.
La novela comienza cuando Eve descubre que su futuro es quedarse embarazada una vez tras otra para mantener a la raza humana, como el resto de mujeres. Y por ello decide huir. Es ahí cuando comienza la acción, nada más empezar el libro.
Ya el libro comienza de forma contundente y diferente.
Por otro lado la trama de este primer libro se nota introductoria, pero no por ello carece de una trama elaborada que enganche al lector. De hecho Eve comienza un viaje en la que la acompañaremos todos el tiempo.
"Love is just... caring about someone very deeply. Feeling like that person matters to you, like your whole world would be sadder without them in it."
Eve es un personaje que me ha gustado mucho, tiene una personalidad fuerte y es valiente. No duda en marcharse al descubrir el futuro que le queda por delante si no huye. Algo que le falta a Eve es una historia, pues conocemos poco de su pasado, sólo sabemos que es huérfana.
Me habría gustado saber qué vida llevaba en ese colegio y cómo era esa vida que le prometían para su futuro.
Caleb es un personaje que también me ha gustado. Que en este primer libro queda un poco al margen como personaje pero que juega un papel muy importante.
La autora nos describe cada situación con detalle pero no por ello convierte las descripciones en pesadas ni demasiado abundantes. Nos mete en el futuro destructivo de la raza humana, nos cuenta cómo son las ciudades destruidas por las que pasa Eve y cómo es la gente que encuentra más allá.
Me ha gustado mucho, es sumamente original dentro de todo lo que hay distópico, tiene una trama que engancha muchísimo y que deja con muchas ganas de leer Once...
Si pensáis leerlo en inglés recomiendo tener un nivel un poco fluido, pues no tiene un inglés básico ni simple para empezar.
November 5, 2011
Rating: 3.5
It's no secret that I have a weakness for super-cool dystopian novels, so I knew I had to read Eve from the moment I heard about it — and I'm glad I did! Considering its insane competition, it's not the best dystopian I've ever read but it was still really enjoyable!
Anna Carey did an awesome job with making the world believable in that awful, gut-wrenching sort of way, which is so important in a dystopian book! It was gritty and dirty and full of such selfish people. Some parts actually gave me chills just because I could draw parallel lines from now to that future, which was both scary and impressing.
I adored Eve. I'll admit that she made some bad decisions and was a little naive at times, but she always did things with the best intentions! With a quick mind, a strong drive, and a huge heart, Eve was such a realistic character that it was hard not to connect with her.
The rest of the characters (like Caleb, who I loved with Eve so much more than I thought I would!) added to the awesome factor, just like the cool plot. Anna Carey still managed to throw some surprises into the mix that I hadn't seen coming.
Overall, Eve was a gritty and well-paced adventure that kept me flipping pages well into the night. This book is definitely a one-sit read! I can't wait to get my hands on the second! :)
BUY or BORROW?: This would make an awesome edition to any dystopian-lover's shelf!
(Original review at Mimi Valentine's YA Review Blog)
It's no secret that I have a weakness for super-cool dystopian novels, so I knew I had to read Eve from the moment I heard about it — and I'm glad I did! Considering its insane competition, it's not the best dystopian I've ever read but it was still really enjoyable!
Anna Carey did an awesome job with making the world believable in that awful, gut-wrenching sort of way, which is so important in a dystopian book! It was gritty and dirty and full of such selfish people. Some parts actually gave me chills just because I could draw parallel lines from now to that future, which was both scary and impressing.
I adored Eve. I'll admit that she made some bad decisions and was a little naive at times, but she always did things with the best intentions! With a quick mind, a strong drive, and a huge heart, Eve was such a realistic character that it was hard not to connect with her.
The rest of the characters (like Caleb, who I loved with Eve so much more than I thought I would!) added to the awesome factor, just like the cool plot. Anna Carey still managed to throw some surprises into the mix that I hadn't seen coming.
Overall, Eve was a gritty and well-paced adventure that kept me flipping pages well into the night. This book is definitely a one-sit read! I can't wait to get my hands on the second! :)
BUY or BORROW?: This would make an awesome edition to any dystopian-lover's shelf!
(Original review at Mimi Valentine's YA Review Blog)
October 14, 2011
This is the world according to Eve:
• Men are evil.
• The world is full of them.
Okay, okay. Simmer down. You can’t really blame Eve. She grew up in a world where women are priced commodities and are apparently only good for one thing – as a part of a baby-making assembly line. I’m not kidding. This book has some serious demented concepts, far beyond the reaches of my usually open, accommodating mind.
Eve is probably one of those characters that, had she been written with a stronger personality, I’d probably love this. I’ve mentioned this before that the prime reason why I love dystopian so much is because I found it thrilling to watch humans strive to overcome adversity. This book had the right set up but with a somewhat uninspiring main character. She often depended on people and she lacked the street smarts and the spunk to survive the world she was in. Yes, I get that she lived most of her life within the cluster of equally cosseted girls who had been fed with a steady diet of lies, but this girl is beyond thick. For heaven’s sake, she didn’t even know what balls are! BALLS, I tell you. BALLS! Anyway. I think the author had the right idea when she was developing Eve’s character but I think she went too far with making her naïve – so naïve that she was borderline dumb. I’m sorry. I hate giving negative reviews but I had such high hopes for this book.
I thought that the story’s foundation was weak.
Why bother educating the girls with literature only to end up as drug-induced fetus vessels many times over? What was the point of it all?
How are these girls being impregnated? Do they harvest sperm from the King and get them pregnant via in vitro fertilization? And if so, then the world will soon be populated with a whole caravan of half brothers and sisters. How does that work with the repopulation dilemma? Hello, inbreeding? Incest?
Why was Eve so important that the entire country wanted her captured by order of the King himself? She was valedictorian, so what? I don’t get it. Give me something. Was she the most fertile woman in the world that the King wanted to impregnate her personally? *shudders* Keep in mind that the king is old.
If the world’s population diminished due to the plague, won’t it be simpler to get whoever’s left to repopulate it? Why was there a need to forced girls into baby factory type of slavery?
Why does the government, under the ruling of this tyrant king, insistent upon punishing and enslaving the young when really, they’re the best chance the world’s got of surviving?
I just couldn’t follow the logic.
The ending left much to be desired. But by that point, I really couldn’t summon an ounce of heed. This book was startlingly violent but acceptable given the genre. I’m not sure if this book will be a series and I’m still on the fence whether or not I will pick up the next book.
Time will tell.
• Men are evil.
• The world is full of them.
Okay, okay. Simmer down. You can’t really blame Eve. She grew up in a world where women are priced commodities and are apparently only good for one thing – as a part of a baby-making assembly line. I’m not kidding. This book has some serious demented concepts, far beyond the reaches of my usually open, accommodating mind.
Eve is probably one of those characters that, had she been written with a stronger personality, I’d probably love this. I’ve mentioned this before that the prime reason why I love dystopian so much is because I found it thrilling to watch humans strive to overcome adversity. This book had the right set up but with a somewhat uninspiring main character. She often depended on people and she lacked the street smarts and the spunk to survive the world she was in. Yes, I get that she lived most of her life within the cluster of equally cosseted girls who had been fed with a steady diet of lies, but this girl is beyond thick. For heaven’s sake, she didn’t even know what balls are! BALLS, I tell you. BALLS! Anyway. I think the author had the right idea when she was developing Eve’s character but I think she went too far with making her naïve – so naïve that she was borderline dumb. I’m sorry. I hate giving negative reviews but I had such high hopes for this book.
I thought that the story’s foundation was weak.
Why bother educating the girls with literature only to end up as drug-induced fetus vessels many times over? What was the point of it all?
How are these girls being impregnated? Do they harvest sperm from the King and get them pregnant via in vitro fertilization? And if so, then the world will soon be populated with a whole caravan of half brothers and sisters. How does that work with the repopulation dilemma? Hello, inbreeding? Incest?
Why was Eve so important that the entire country wanted her captured by order of the King himself? She was valedictorian, so what? I don’t get it. Give me something. Was she the most fertile woman in the world that the King wanted to impregnate her personally? *shudders* Keep in mind that the king is old.
If the world’s population diminished due to the plague, won’t it be simpler to get whoever’s left to repopulate it? Why was there a need to forced girls into baby factory type of slavery?
Why does the government, under the ruling of this tyrant king, insistent upon punishing and enslaving the young when really, they’re the best chance the world’s got of surviving?
I just couldn’t follow the logic.
The ending left much to be desired. But by that point, I really couldn’t summon an ounce of heed. This book was startlingly violent but acceptable given the genre. I’m not sure if this book will be a series and I’m still on the fence whether or not I will pick up the next book.
Time will tell.
October 7, 2015
[September 23rd, 2015] MINI RANT REVIEW WARNING
2.5 stars.
This was a slightly dull and painful read, I blame the Dystopian YA plague that has affect books for a while now. There's just too many of them and it's hard to get a little bit of diversity or rather unpredictability. Because let's face it, it's a Dystopian--the world *is* screwed up, massively! It's just how it's built upon and unfolds for the reader that makes the journey a bit different, also helps if you have an awesome cast accompanying you as well.
While the cast for Eve wasn't bad, it wasn't entirely good either. But I will state it had been better than other Dystopian YA I have encountered...thankfully. Yet the fact of the matter still remains, they were not a ground breaking troupe or as enthralling as they could have been. Especially if you add in the romance aspect, le sigh. The install be was weak in this but present. I wasn't surprised nor as annoyed as I would have been in other more aggravating stories. Romance, once enters, tends to set the overall stage of the story as a whole, and it did for most part. But the characters themselves weren't strong enough or as well developed as they could have been to carry the story better for me.
Again, this is merely from my perspective and opinion, so don't hold me to it. The experience may have lacked severally for me, but doesn't mean others won't enjoy it more.
Oh, and another thing--this was going to be a 3.5 star but something very unnecessary and stupid occurred that made me facepalm repeatedly in a deadpan way. My annoyance levels and rage was through the roof. I know it's dystopian. I know it's a cutthroat world out there. But honestly, this part ruined it a bit for me. Not to mention my impression on a certain character. =_=;
Regardlessssss! I was irked constantly and it was a bit of a dull read to me. Safe to say I'm pretty done with general Dystopian YAs for a while... *sighs*
2.5 stars.
This was a slightly dull and painful read, I blame the Dystopian YA plague that has affect books for a while now. There's just too many of them and it's hard to get a little bit of diversity or rather unpredictability. Because let's face it, it's a Dystopian--the world *is* screwed up, massively! It's just how it's built upon and unfolds for the reader that makes the journey a bit different, also helps if you have an awesome cast accompanying you as well.
While the cast for Eve wasn't bad, it wasn't entirely good either. But I will state it had been better than other Dystopian YA I have encountered...thankfully. Yet the fact of the matter still remains, they were not a ground breaking troupe or as enthralling as they could have been. Especially if you add in the romance aspect, le sigh. The install be was weak in this but present. I wasn't surprised nor as annoyed as I would have been in other more aggravating stories. Romance, once enters, tends to set the overall stage of the story as a whole, and it did for most part. But the characters themselves weren't strong enough or as well developed as they could have been to carry the story better for me.
Again, this is merely from my perspective and opinion, so don't hold me to it. The experience may have lacked severally for me, but doesn't mean others won't enjoy it more.
Oh, and another thing--this was going to be a 3.5 star but something very unnecessary and stupid occurred that made me facepalm repeatedly in a deadpan way. My annoyance levels and rage was through the roof. I know it's dystopian. I know it's a cutthroat world out there. But honestly, this part ruined it a bit for me. Not to mention my impression on a certain character. =_=;
Regardlessssss! I was irked constantly and it was a bit of a dull read to me. Safe to say I'm pretty done with general Dystopian YAs for a while... *sighs*
July 9, 2011
The gist:
In the year 2036 plague has decimated the population, leaving children orphaned and the world in chaos. After being taken from her dying mother, Eve is taken to School at the age of five to live with other orphaned girls her age. She is taught the dangers of the outside world--wild dogs, disease, and the Dangers of Men--and given an education befitting that of a gently-reared Victorian lady. On the cusp of her graduation--as Valedictorian, natch--as she is preparing to go on to learn her Trade before moving to the City of Sand where the King of New America is building a city with walls big enough to keep out death itself, she learns the terrible truth about what awaits the girls after they graduate.
With the help of a Teacher, she escapes and sets out for Califia--a safe haven for escaped girls just over the San Francisco bridge.
The storyline is a cross between Wither and Delirium, and unfortunately shares many of their shortcomings. Though the writing itself was well-done and the premise interesting, the plot was plagued with inconsistencies and convenient coincidences.
I found Eve to be unfailingly selfish, but beyond that her behavior was rarely consistent. She was either a prissy Mary Sue or recklessly endangering everyone around her. I liked Caleb a lot, but I never really felt we got to know him or his motivations. However, I do give credit to Carey for taking the time to actually build a relationship between Eve and Caleb instead of falling back on the love at first sight rote.
For all of its shortcomings, it was an enjoyable read for the most part and I do think there is some potential here for an exciting series. Hopefully Eve will be a stronger character, and the plot holes will be tied up in the coming books.
In the year 2036 plague has decimated the population, leaving children orphaned and the world in chaos. After being taken from her dying mother, Eve is taken to School at the age of five to live with other orphaned girls her age. She is taught the dangers of the outside world--wild dogs, disease, and the Dangers of Men--and given an education befitting that of a gently-reared Victorian lady. On the cusp of her graduation--as Valedictorian, natch--as she is preparing to go on to learn her Trade before moving to the City of Sand where the King of New America is building a city with walls big enough to keep out death itself, she learns the terrible truth about what awaits the girls after they graduate.
With the help of a Teacher, she escapes and sets out for Califia--a safe haven for escaped girls just over the San Francisco bridge.
The storyline is a cross between Wither and Delirium, and unfortunately shares many of their shortcomings. Though the writing itself was well-done and the premise interesting, the plot was plagued with inconsistencies and convenient coincidences.
I found Eve to be unfailingly selfish, but beyond that her behavior was rarely consistent. She was either a prissy Mary Sue or recklessly endangering everyone around her. I liked Caleb a lot, but I never really felt we got to know him or his motivations. However, I do give credit to Carey for taking the time to actually build a relationship between Eve and Caleb instead of falling back on the love at first sight rote.
For all of its shortcomings, it was an enjoyable read for the most part and I do think there is some potential here for an exciting series. Hopefully Eve will be a stronger character, and the plot holes will be tied up in the coming books.
May 10, 2017
There is a weird kind of feminism in this book at the start and I thought we would see examples of strong female characters, but when it came right down to it, they ended up weak and reliant upon the male characters to survive. The story started out interesting, with the school for girls indoctrinating them in feminist studies and then turning around to use them as breeders. But, it really fell apart by the end of the book and I had a hard time paying attention by the end. I usually fly through books, but I found myself looking up from the pages often during the last 50 pages. I will still read the next one now that I know what Califia is. That might be interesting.
September 6, 2017
It wasn't a bad start. Will see how it continues.
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