Review : Eve by Anna Carey
Eve by Anna Carey
Pages : 318
Genre : YA, Speculative fiction, Dystopia
Series : Eve, book 1
My Rating : 2,5/5
What it’s about :
When Eve learns what really happens to the girls once they step out of school to go learn a “trade”, fear pushes her to do the unthinkable : run away, run until she puts the nightmare behind her and finds safety into a shelter. But the road is hard, and if she wants to make it out alive, Eve might have to face the biggest challenge of her life : learn to trust.
My Thoughts :
In another world, where The Hunger Games and Wither and Bumped have yet to be published, Eve might have had a better chance of standing out and blowing my mind. Unfortunately, Eve is part of THE genre populating the YA shelves right now, and as such, can only be compared to its fellow competitors.
Eve wasn’t a bad novel. The premise of “girls being used as breeding stock” isn’t new to speculative fiction, but it’s still an interesting one that gives me chills all the time. And I admired that once Eve decided to go, she did, even though it broke her heart for many reasons. I wouldn’t have wanted to read about her hesitating and contemplating for fifty pages.
Yet once she runs away, the novel never really commits to a specific style. It’s not action packed like Divergent and Legend; it isn’t filled with constant twists like Wither; it isn’t witty and clever like Bumped; it doesn’t have the complexity of The Hunger Games; and it isn’t dark or introspective or super romancy like some other popular dystopian novels have been, either. It’s a little of everything, but in such a quiet way, it makes everything a little forgettable.
The cast of characters is interesting, and the dangers Eve does encounter were realistic enough. While I wished the story had something more distinguishable, I wasn’t bored by it. I found Eve to be an easy and quick novel, and the lack of complexity in the worldbuilding made it very easy to get into its world.
Also, beware : sorta cliffhanger ending! Seriously. It’s like when I watch a movie on Netflix and my connection suddenly fails just as some major plot twist is going on and then I have to wait until the next day to know what happens next. This is the kind of stuff that keeps me awake at night, and it isn’t cool. Seriously. It was all “Hey this is the ending except twist! It’s not! See ya!” Uh.
So, I guess this sounds like a bad review, but overall, Eve was okayish. Will I be reading the sequel? Maybe. Do I recommend it? Well, I do and I don’t. I didn’t hate or love it, but if you are to read a single YA dystopian novel this year, there are more interesting ones to start with, for sure!
Series Reading Order :
- Eve
- Once
- Rise (coming April 2013)
Thanks for the review – I’m going to skip this one.
This has been sitting on my Kindle for a very, very long time and I honestly don’t know that it will ever be read. I keep seeing similar reviews. It wasn’t “bad”, but maybe you could spend your time reading something else :/
With so many books out there that share the same themes, this one doesn’t sound like a must read. At some point, I think that there are bound to be so many amalgamations of this type of book that readers will get tired of them. Thanks for the honest review, Kaye, and for sharing your opinions with style and candor.
I never did pick this one up. So its just sort of “meh” huh? It’s sad that it didn’t even really do one strong thing well for you. Its hard not to compare a book to all of it’s competitors.
Pabkins @ My Shelf Confessions
Okayish….thanks for reading this one but I will certainly pass on it because I want to read 4 star and above books! The cover is pretty awesome though!! Love your honest and thoughtful reviews!