Saturday, January 7, 2012

Book Review: Eve by Anna Carey

Title: Eve
Author: Anna Carey
Publisher: HarperCollins
Genre: Dystopian
Why I read it/how I found it: It showed up in the mailbox addressed to me. I think I won it in a contest, but I can't remember.

Description:
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.


Review:
Well, the concept was pretty interesting, with the take on reproduction. Although has anyone else noticed the different spins that dystopians have taken with reproduction? Wither and Bumped both have different takes on it, as does Eve. Anyway, the world-building was done well, and I'll give it the distinction of being one of the better-developed dystopian worlds out there. I think that having so many connections to our world now, and the fact that not everything was lost, makes it an easier world to connect to than some other dystopians. 
However, the main flaw in this book was Eve herself. She's beautiful, intelligent, fragile, kind, and oh-so perfect, everyone just loves her. Even the people who don't like her at first come to love her. She just so perfect no one could ever hate her once they know her! So that was annoying. At first, I tried to fight back my dislike because hey, she's been fed lies to all her life, I should feel some sympathy for her. But then I realized...I dislike people who are products of their upbringing. And after that I felt fine when I was annoyed at how she freaked out whenever she saw a man and continued to believe the lies she'd been told in school, even though she found out that they'd been bringing her up to a horrible fate. 
The beginning was a little too fast for me, I guess given Eve's personality I didn't see her as acting in a way that got her out of school and into the wild by breaking rules. And  I never really felt a connection with the life Eve used to have with her mother, and then with her friends Pip and Ruby.
Looking at the book, it has what it should--action, stakes, romance. But nothing about it was really special to me, and Eve just bugged me too much.


Other info: This is a trilogy, the next book titled Once. It has also been opted as a TV show from the producers of The Vampire Diaries. Anna Carey's book is here.

5 comments:

  1. I haven't read this one, but Wither is on my list. I find it interesting too that reproduction keeps coming up as a theme in Dystopians.

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  2. That does sound interesting and I understand about hating a character that is a product of their upbringing. Sometimes you just want them to be different from it and very different.

    By the way, I love the banner on your blog!

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  3. Based on what you said about Eve's character, I think this one's a no-go for me. So thanks for the review!

    Every MC I've read about who was loved by all the other characters seems to be hated by all the readers. (Well, almost all the readers.)

    By the way -- I haven't spent any time in the blogosphere for ages, so I might be way late in telling you this, but I love your blog's new design!

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  4. Eve stays with two-hundred other girls who have high expectations. What they don¿t know is the secret that awaits them. Eve finds out what her future holds, and flees. She meets with her classmate, who has also escaped, and a teenage boy, who she learns to love. They undergo many dangers while trying to seek refuge is the City of Sand.

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