Author: Anna Carey
Genre: Young Adult/ Dystopian
Pages: 322
Release Date: October 4th 2011
Publisher: HarperTeen
Synopsis:
Goodreads synopsis
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.
Book Rating: 2 leaves out of 4
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Woo-hoo! My first review, lets get this party started! Now, I do want to say that I am sorry I know that is has been awhile since I posted the first post on to my blog. But I hope that I will be able to continuously post a regularly from now on. I do want to ask for everyone who reads my post to bring in the constructive criticism to help me get better as I continue to blog and write reviews.
The Cover
When you first look at the cover it looks interesting, we have a girl standing on a foggy bridge alone. It gives a rather ominous feel, which it should since it is a dystopian novel. Now this is just a little fact about this dryad, I have a rather strong dislike for real life models in novel covers. Why you may ask? Well for one, I don't like uniform idea of beauty, two I don't like the author telling the reader specifically what their character looks like and three it's just a pet peeve. Now in saying this I'm not all that thrilled that the cover uses a model as Eve going across the bridge, but you don't see her face which in my book makes it alright.
Final Grade: C-: The cover seemed boring after awhile, in the beginning when you first get the book its interesting but after a certain time it gets dull and, well as I said boring.
The Characters
The characters in this book is the main downfall of the whole novel. Boring and one-sided, is how I can best describe all of the characters. One of the big problems I have about them, is that all of them have in some way shape or form the same background. Their whole loving family was killed by a horrible disease, leaving them to be orphans in an unforgiving world, and then forced into horrible labor or unknown hardship by a ruthless government. For most all of the characters in the book that same story is over and over again, and quite frankly it gets annoying fast. The second, is that everyone and I mean EVERYONE falls in love with Eve and an woman alike can not seem to not fall in love with her and why is this? I truly don't know, her severe lack of common sense in some way, shape, or form gets people hurt or killed. A great example - Spoiler Alert - after Eve sends out a signal to try to contact Caleb, the government soldiers find the the place they are hiding and kill the old couple that were protecting them and the girl who was tagging along. Overall the characters were very disappointing, and I can't help but wish that they were more interesting.
Final Grade: F: Because quite frankly the characters in my opinion did not have enough substance to keep my interest or support the book.
The Plot
Through all of the faults of the characters, the one thing that does stand out to this dryad is that the total plot of Eve was acually wonderful. As I had stated earlier forced birth and girls being taught to hate men all rapped up in a delicious ball of dystopian to me sounds like a good story. Really I only have two main pet peeves about the plot itself. One, was the rather odd pacing. The very beginning of the book felt to go extremely fast. We barely get to know Pip and Ruth two of Eve's best friend, and heck I was kind of curious about some of the classes that are constantly mentions. I would have loved to get a full chapter about the class called "The Dangers of Boys and Men" instead of the little snippets we hear about it hear and there. And the worst part about the weird pacing was the agonizingly slow parts in the middle that felt like they went on forever. My second problem was the INSTA-LOVE. When it is mentions multiple times that all the girls in the School were taught to hate men, I don't think it is a good to have your main character instantly fall for the other sex. We all knew that the romance between them was going to happen, but I was expecting it to be closer to the end. Maybe a progression where Eve noticed that she was falling for him and was afriad to admit it till the end, which would have made the ending ten times better. Which brings me to the best part of the whole book. THE ENDING. When I read the ending of this book I stood up until 2 oclock in the morning 3 hours before I had to go to work to finish this book. As many problem as I may have with certain parts of this book, I absolutely love the ending and I has made me want to read the rest of the series hoping that it may get better as it goes on.
Final Grade: B-: An exciting, heart crushing ending that makes you want to continue on for more.
The Silver Lining
Overall, the silver lining of Eve is that it is a good idea that could bring many people into it. With an ending that was amazing. So everyone what was your Silver Lining of Eve?
The next review will be on: The Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
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