December 4, 2011

Book Review of "Eve" by Anna Carey

Title: Eve (Eve #1)
Author: Anna Carey
Classification: YA Fiction, Dystopian
Source: Library

Overall Grade:
C
Would I recommend it?
No. A mediocre addition to the genre.


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Summary (from Goodreads): 

The year is 2032, sixteen years after a deadly virus—and the vaccine intended to protect against it—wiped out most of the earth’s population. The night before eighteen-year-old Eve’s graduation from her all-girls school she discovers what really happens to new graduates, 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 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.

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My Thoughts:

While Eve had a great premise, a stunning beginning, and the potential to be great, flat characters and poor plotting really doomed this Dystopian to a life on the shelf.

When we first meet Eve at the private girl's school she attends with her best friend Pip, we find that she is the smartest girl in her class, beautiful and talented. Then, when Eve learns that her and her other classmates will not be able to learn about Art or Economics after they graduate, but will be put to more sinister uses instead, she escapes without a moment's hesitation.

During this great beginning, I admired Eve's character, especially her strength of will to escape the school and figure out the truth for herself. However, my glee was short-lived, as we soon find that Eve's character is as malleable as play-dough.

While Eve encounters dangers, friends, and enemies after her escape, we find that she is extremely easily swayed by those she comes across. She easily pushes aside her fear and worry for Pip and her other friends that she left at school, despite the fact that she knows what true fate awaits them.

Eve's enemy-made-friend Arden would have made a much more interesting protagonist, in my opinion! She is strong, mean, and willing to do whatever it takes to survive.

Although the story in Eve allows the reader to be entertained, the main character's lack of resolve and weak nature, as well as serious plot-holes and clichéd events, make it impossible for most readers to fall completely in love with the novel. Readers can only suspend disbelief for a certain amount of time, people! Readers can only take so much of sweet, sappy love between an amazing hero and a super-dumb heroine!

All in all, while Eve will certainly entertain and bring many readers to wait anxiously for the sequel with its killer cliffhanger ending, there are other Dystopian adventures that are more worth their time.

For a more in-depth, thoroughly SPOILERY look at my take on Eve, check out my Goodreads review.

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Overall Grade:
C
Would I recommend it?
No. A mediocre addition to the genre.

2 comments:

  1. Sounds like all the other dystopian young adult novels. I'm reading Delirium now and liking it but I can only take so much of this type of reading. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I felt similar to Delirium, even if it was written with more lyricism then Eve!

    ReplyDelete

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