Eve ~ Anna Carey review

Eve (Eve Trilogy #1)
HarperCollins
October 4, 2011
336 pages
Goodreads/Amazon

Just the first in a trilogy about Eve and the world sixteen years after a virus wiped out most of the population, Eve already has The Vampire Diaries producers developing a pilot. Eve has been safe at her School for more than ten years. She's never been beyond the gates of her heavily guarded school: the school is safe and outside is not. Since a virus wiped out most of the population orphaned girls have been living at the school, raised by the teachers and taught to fear not only the outside (where rabid dogs and gangs fight) but also males.

The girls are going to learn a trade and move to the City of Sand after their graduation, helping to rebuild New America.

But the night before graduation, Eve learns the shocking truth of what truly awaits the girls after graduation, what the King has planned for them - and knows she has to escape. No matter what awaits her outside those gates.

Outside those gates, though, is more than Eve could ever have expected - both in the sense of physical danger and mental realizations. She'll have to struggle - with the help of Arden, a former school acquaintance - to keep herself safe and to figure out what she learned in school was fact and what was more propaganda.

With danger around every corner and only a few people (sometimes) to rely on, Eve will struggle to survive (and un-captured) in this virus ravaged world.


Eve reminded me a bit of Sophie Littlefield's Aftertime - but that may have just been the devastated After world that both Cass and Eve spend a lot of their respective books in (there are no zombies or anything supernatural in Eve). Eve is enjoyable in the way that it brings so many different elements (the uber, skewed feminism where the girls are taught all men and boys are bad and to be feared; the virus that left mostly children alive; the ravaged landscape of the world that's left; the new world order) together to create the dystopian society.

With danger facing Eve - and those with her - at nearly every moment, a lot of the novel does require the reader to really like Eve. We get to know her more in the very beginning of the novel while she's at school with her friends and that's expanded with fleeting glimpses of her past over the rest of the story. It does help to connect with this girl whose story the book really is.

However, it can be hard to really like Eve sometimes. She makes decisions that are not likable - and not necessarily that understandable. It's easy to see how said decisions and their repercussions move the plot along, but it can diminish the reader's opinion of Eve, as well.

A lot more of the New America society was introduced or at least mentioned in this first book of the series to have me really eager to read the next two to see if the City of Sand appears or any of the characters we left behind in Eve.

I'll admit I don't love Eve, but I do like her and she's gone through more than a lot so allowances can be made. And I'm more than a little intrigued by the world Anna Carey has created in this new series.

I loved reading a book where gender was addressed so much - and well. It wasn't just the girls being taught to fear men, it came up in other instances as well (one which you'll have to read to find out - no way am I spoiling that part), and Eve's reactions to everything after she left school. It was a thought provoking addition to a dystopian, YA especially.

8/10

and thank you to the lovelies at Harper for sending me a copy of Eve