A hit-and-miss dystopia which doesn't fulfil it's potential, but builds the way for what could be an interesting trilogy
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.
Review
After having my eye on this book for quite some time, I finally decided to take the plunge and give it a go. I had high hopes for it, but with reviewers it seemed to be a very cut-glass love or hate, which made me slightly weary about which I'd fall into.
Strangely, the answer was neither. I did not hate this book. I did not love it. I'm in a very murky middleground, to be honest. It wasn't exactly a bad book; on the contrary I found it easy to get into, and there was some lovely prose from Carey.
However, I just think it falls down on the basis that it is simply not a good dystopia .
Thanks to a certain trilogy (and no, Divergent, I'm not looking at you) dystopia is the must-have of young adult. And that's fine, that's fresh - hell, its a thousand times better when Twilight brought in a shipload of miserable paranormal "romances" with it. But the problem is that all these dystopia are cutting corners.
Take "Eve". You have a (relatively) new premise, one that has potential, but the execution cuts corners. America - sorry New America - has a King. I can work with that, but I want to know why he's there. We're given a brief mumbling about a politician taking advantage, but I don't buy it. Why did no one overthrow him before? Not to mention the fact that he's so elusive that he never even seems a threat.
The basis of the dystopian world is that in 2016 (16 years before "Eve" is set) a virus ravaged through the world. A cure was provided, but this only made everything a whole lot worse, and so everyone - except, for some reason we don't know, the children - died.
But did they all die at once? The build up of cars with skeletons insides would suggest so - but how does that work? It makes no sense.
Moving onto the characters, I have to say that for a change, there were none that particularly infuriated me, or elicited any emotion from me whatsoever. This is mainly because they were just so bland .
Eve is a dull protagonist who just doesn't ring true. She makes mistake after stupid mistake, being ridiculously naive and completely unprepared for what lay ahead. Its like putting a barbie doll into a war zone - she just stumbles about relying on others and the oh-so coincidental situations which miraculously allow everything to fall into place.
Being brought up her whole life shrouded in propaganda and being told she is beautiful, her future is secure, the society she lives in good, she abandons all beliefs within about 5 seconds of finding out the truth of her School. It just wouldn't happen!
And then Caleb, the love-interest. I can't help but think he is a wasted character. He's basically a cut price Alex from Delirium with about as much development as a cardboard box. He had potential that was just thrown away. Also, his and Eve's "love" was pretty pathetic. There was no one moment where it made any sense for either to show an interest in the other, and even at the ending, I wasn't convinced.
The only character I actually liked was Arden, Eve's antagonist-turned-best-friend-within-two-milliseconds. She was genuinely likable, and felt like the only one who had guts. God only knows why she decided to stick with Eve - 'cos it sure ain't for the intelligent conversation they'd have. She was edgy, rough and brave - you'll end up wishing she was telling the story.
Which brings me to my final point. The writing.
The sentences themselves were good, and there were some lovely parts that read brilliantly. That wasn't the problem. I just felt like the whole story read as a fairytale, rather than a dystopia. It was almost dreamlike, as if an 80 year old Eve was sat with Grandchildren around her, recalling some far off memories of when-the-world-was-bad-and-I-stumbled-around-for-300-pages.
There was never any tension built - I never felt even slightly concerned for any of the characters. The whole thing would have been a thousand times better in present tense (not something I usually say, because at least then we'd have even considered a threat).
So, to conclude this review, "Eve" is not a terrible book. Its just not great. If you're choosing between this and, say, Delirium or Divergent, read the latters. I personally will read the next book, Once, purely because I'm a completionist and I want to see where - if anywhere - Carey's going to go with this, (although, being a dystopia, its not hard to guess).
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