Buy Eve by Anna Carey
Special: $7.83 (Regular price: $9.32)
Publisher: Harper Collins
Format: Paperback
Reviewer: Melissa on February 16, 2012
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
It’s 2032, sixteen years after the majority of the Earth’s population has been wiped out by a deadly virus and the vaccine intended to keep them safe and healthy. In Eve, the 18-year-old titular character discovers what really happens to the girls who graduate from her all girl’s boarding school on the night before she’s about to read her valedictorian speech. Anna Carey begins with an amazing premise and writes an exciting plot that will draw readers in, but ultimately, this dystopian novel fell a little flat for me.
Now, even though I look back on this read and say, “Meh,” there are some things I need to get out before we can go any further. First, I was completely immersed in Eve‘s plot: I couldn’t put it down and ended up reading it — start to finish — in way less than 24 hours. It was a cold day, and Eve was a great excuse to curl up on the couch and spend a few hours. I love classic dystopian novels, but would say it was more of a cross of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Knife of Never Letting Go than The Hunger Games as it’s touted. That said, I enjoyed Eve, but I didn’t love it.
What’s it about Eve that bothered me? I think the problem is that the titular character is too well equipped for the life she thought she’d lead post-graduation, so when she must escape the horrible fate that really awaits her, she doesn’t have any skills to survival skills. Or, no, that’s not entirely true, she has one — the ability to find someone else who can help feed her and keep her safe.
At the same time, there is something that Eve has which many of the male characters she meets don’t. She can read and write. Among the boys, these weren’t the highest valued skills — it was more necessary to learn to fight, hunt, and protect the younger boys in the community — to make sure the government wasn’t able to capture them and bring them back to the life of servitude that awaited them. However, Eve begins teaching a few boys, and then many of them, realizing that the ability for them to read could make their ability to survive much easier. If her lack of usual survival skills makes the plot resemble that of “Cinderella,” then maybe her ability to draw crowds resembles Snow White. And that’s a good thing in my books.
While I could’ve liked a stronger, more independent main character, there’s no denying that the pacing was good and the romance was swoonworthy. If you read Eve, you’ll be looking forward to the second installment in the trilogy, Once, as much as I am.
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Melissa has always been a voracious reader of fiction and has an M.A. in English Literature to prove it. Like many other adults, she got caught up in the young adult crossover fiction phenomenon. Now, one of her great joys comes from sharing her love of YA lit on this popular review site. Come with expectations of intellect, magic, and honest reviews, and you won’t be disappointed.
