Eve by Anna Carey
Genre: Young Adult Dysotopian
Source: ARC from Publisher
Series: Yes, Planned Trilogy, Book One
Buy It:
The Book Depository
Challenge: No
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.
I'm going to start my review where I always start it: The Beginning. When I first requested an ARC of Eve from Anna Carey (the author) I was very excited to read it and had heard from a few people that it was good. I'm usually a big dysotopian fan so I was pretty excited to read it. Since requesting it, I have read several dysotopias so I do think that that was part of the reason that I started losing interest before I even picked up the book. I feel extremely bad about this so I do recommend that regardless of my review, you give Eve a shot because for me, it was just okay but, you might love it!
I've started getting sick of dysotopias lately because I feel like each one is so cookie cutter. In my recent opinion, every one of them is so trite; everything is always the same. I feel like there is always a cruel government, someone trying to escape (most of the time its a female), and the rest of the story only differs a little. I must say that Eve definitely resembled Dark Parties by Sara Grant. I will definitely be reading some other genre for a while but, of course I will still be delivering any of the reviews I promised, regardless of genre. Anyway, I was really looking for something different than the usual and Eve just wasn't what I was looking for.
I usually don't say much about the cover of the books I read because of course, you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover but, I do want to tell you what I thought about this one. I love the color gradient and color scheme and I also love how Eve's hair is red because it contrasts with the colors in the background and makes Eve stand out from other girls. The Bridge in the background is great because it has a lot of meaning in the story. There were actually quite a few different bridges in the story and I love that the image has multiple meanings. I really liked that the cover related to the story and was meaningful to the plot. The only things that I dislike about the cover are very minor: I feel like the girl looks very photoshopped and I wasn't really a fan of the title font. The font would look really cool on something else but, I feel like it takes away from the meaning of the cover.
I felt like Eve made a pretty good protagonist, although, just like the plot, she was very cookie cutter. She reminded me of Neva from Dark Parties (Sara Grant), Cassia from Matched (Ally Condie), Amy from Across the Universe (Beth Revis), and a bunch of other dysotopian protagonists. She was fooled by authority, found out the truth, and tried to escape the cruelty. On the bright side, it was very interesting to hear what she was taught about men. It was humorous to hear about all the books that her school twisted and actually reminded me about banned books week (which was last week) ! Caleb was a pretty good love interest but, there wasn't much about him that was very different from any other love interest. I really liked Leif's character because I wasn't always sure what he would do next. Leif was very unpredictable and I felt like even though he was a minor character, he had conflicting personalities that made the story a little more interesting. I also really liked Benny and Silas because of their innocence.
One of my biggest pet peeves throughout Eve was that I felt like every event was so abrupt. There was no transitioning throughout the story. For example, all of a sudden someone would be talking to Eve and I would be left wondering where in the world that person came from! It really bothered me that I had to keep trying to figure out how things happened, so much that I would probably say that Eve had quite a few [minor] plot holes in it.
Overall, Eve was just an okay book for me. I feel bad to pick it apart but, I know that I have to be honest about the way I felt so that you [blog reader] can have an accurate review! I do hope that you give Eve a try yourself because it was good, there just wasn't anything special about it.
Final Grade:
The Picture of Dorian Gray meets Pride and Prejudice, with a dash of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
