Eve, Anna Carey
Title: Eve
Author: Anna Carey
Publisher: Harper Teen
Date: October 4, 2011
Pages: 336 pages
Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian, Teen, Romance, Fertility (we will talk about this as an emerging genre in an upcoming theme post…we have to at some point….I can’t ignore it)
ISBN: 9780062048509
Publisher Description:
Where do you go when nowhere is safe?
Sixteen years after a deadly virus wiped out most of Earth’s population, the world is a perilous place. Eighteen-year-old Eve has never been beyond the heavily guarded perimeter of her school, where she and two hundred other orphaned girls have been promised a future as the teachers and artists of the New America. But the night before graduation, Eve learns the shocking truth about her school’s real purpose—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 Arden, her former rival from school, and 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.
In this epic new series, Anna Carey imagines a future that is both beautiful and terrifying. Readers will revel in Eve’s timeless story of forbidden love and extraordinary adventure.
Book Trailer:
New Feature!!! Book Trailers (How WEIRD ARE THESE!!! CHEESE FEST!)
Cover Critique: (also a new feature) I love this cover. I tend to buy books based on covers sometimes (EKK…i know). This would have sold me on the book. Based on the novel–it is such a good fit! It is so biblical. EVE, the red hair, a world destroyed, the bridge leading to the unknown–I love it. The colors are beautiful and the font they chose for the title is a great choice. All in all–I love the cover. It would have caught Alice’s eye.
Alice says: Like it!
If Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan (also…how awesome is this version of Peter Pan!!!) had a dystopian baby– Eve would be it. Carey’s writing moves along swiftly and efficiently, but it is also quite beautiful. I felt like I was not allowed to get off Eve’s dystopian adventure, but I did not mind. I wanted to keep going.
Dystopia can be hard to set up. You have to destroy a world to set one up—so sometimes the set up can take an entire book, or at least half of one. Carey had Eve moving by chapter two. THANK YOU CAREY!!! Even though you are handed so ch information to process, I never felt like I was being lectured on what had happen in New America (get it…New America after the old America has fallen–clever).
Eve is presented with a world so horrifying she has to slowly process it–and she does so in a way that I found realistic. I hate heroines that go from zero to badass. Who does that? I can think of maybe 3 women in my life who if doomsday came would function as super heroes. If my world came to an abrupt and terrifying stop–you would have to diaper me and hand me Jamba Juice–I would not turn into Sailor Moon and be all brave and capable of doing THINGS. This is why I like Eve– she transitions slowly into a person who handles the cards she is dealt–and they suck. This is one hand of SUCKY cards, very dark cards–but she handles them…and then is awesome with them in a way that is true to the character we meet on page ONE. Also–in regards to the Peter Pan references, someone of small and adorable stature asks Eve, “Are you my mother?” HEART STOP. Carey, are you trying to kill me. I seriously got misty. Well played.
Also–YAY FOR NO LOVE TRIANGLE. YA Gods–were you listening to me out there? Did you hear my plea for no more love triangles for a while? Apparently it is possible to write a story without a metaphorical werewolf and vampire–sigh of relief.
I would also like to comment on Carey’s ability to create characters that you just envision and like (form attachements to-cough cough–lost boys–cough cough). Her version of the “lost boys” in this story stole my heart. Caleb, her rescuer, is rough… and real…but not overly done. Nothing about him seems like a stock character. I had not met him in another YA novel before. It was like actually meeting a new character-which is saying something for love interests in YA novels. HELLO CALEB! Very nice to meet you. What a breath of fresh air. Arden, Eve’s”friend” is rough around the edges, but similar to Eve–true to the character you meet on page one–a victim of her upbringing but just as likeable once you get past her cactusy demenor- and really, who doesn’t like a cactus?
I will say this still has the helpless girl-victim trend that is going around, but within this genre it is steps above others….
Where is the next Katniss people? The next Hermione?
Rabbit says: Grades 9-12
This was an easy read. HarperTeen has Eve at a 13+ reading and maturity level and I would agree with them–kinda. I think the reading level may be lower, again, like others, I think a 6th grader could read this, but the content has me leaving this at least at a 13+ reading level. We will discuss why below.
Caterpiller says: Fertility say what?
SPOILER ALERT!!!!! Some topics discussed here will spoil thematic issues from the book. First off, I really liked this take on what I am going to term, at least for now (and to be later explored), fertility dystopia. Carey, unlike some of the other writers in this emerging genre, seems to find the idea of women as breeders, or sows, as she calls them, terrifying. Though I haven’t found an author who doesn’t try to get that message across, they mess it up with romanticising it with convoluted love stories written into the story– I am looking at you Lauren DeStephano. Having a 13-year-old be raped in Wither and fall in love with the rapist and her dystopian nightmare is never going to be ok–not without it being made inherently clear to your YA readers (who are soooo young!! I have talked to girls as young as 13 who now think it might not be bad to be a plural wife….NICE) that it was not ok. It has to be made clear that the issues discussed are rape and Stolkholm syndrome and child polygamy. Seriously–they have to be addressed a bit clearer than blurring the lines so much with the love triangle that no one knows what line you stand on in regards to right and wrong. I understand that a vast majority of the readership of YA lit is much older than the intended audience, but still–the intended audience is young, and bluring the morality of rape culture is never ok. That is not to say the book did not have merit–there was so much there–but it failed to crucify what was wrong with her Atwood-esque world. What would Atwood say? What would your feminist sisters say?
Not Anna Carey. Carey does not make this mistake. THANK YOU! Thank you from me, and thank you from parents everywhere who do not check what their kids reads (which I appreciate–my parents did not and I appreciated that–it benefits the voracious reader–but sometimes I want to scream at women writers who don’t realize they are glorifying rape culture for young girls). Carey–from page one–says NO to the world of using girls as breeders. Eve is so disturbed by the realities of her world she throws everything she knows away and just RUNS. Better to run than to become a uterus for some patriarchal society run by a KING (interesting choice by Carey to choose KING as the term for the ruler in her dystopian world).
What do you think about the emerging “fertility genre”?
What did you think about the existence of “male only” societies in this book? “female only” societies? What did you think of how they behaved (at least from what we could see in book one?
What did you think of the choice to have a KING as the head of New America? Interesting choice of words? Critique of patriarchy?
Is the trailer not very Mary Daly?? Seriously though….interesting.
Thoughts? Paint the Roses RED!
For a final note: There is a book signing tour! One is coming my way in Pasadena! For information click here:
