Review: Eve by Anna Carey

Eve

Author: Anna Carey
Series: Eve, #1

Summary: 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.

Review

After downloading the Kindle app to my iPhone, I immediately began searching for discount books. When I came across Eve at $3 I decided to snatch up the deal. This book has been in my sights for quite some time but I just never picked it up for various reasons. After reading it, the only thought in my mind is "WHY DID I TAKE SO LONG TO READ THIS BOOK!?!"

From the very first page to the very last, my heart was pounding. I haven't read a book that completely submerged me into the pages in a while. I had no idea what to expect since I hadn't read the blurb for the book since the first time I saw the gorgeous cover and thought "I have to know what this book is about". I think that made this book even more exciting. It starts off with Eve and her friends celebrating what will be their graduation the very next day. Eve looks over and sees one of the troublemakers sneaking off and she decides to follow her, sure the girl was going to ruin tomorrows festivities. Especially Eve's valedictorian speech. But she soon discovers her assumptions were far from the truth, and the truth is much worse than Eve could ever have imagined. Eve manages to escape the horrible fate of the other girls, in hopes to find safety and shelter in a place called Califia. Along the way she discovers all the lies she has believed her entire life and that there are far worse things in the world than men and wild dogs. Everything she learned about her country and its leader are completely false. Her world is shatter and she has to rebuild herself from the ground up. She comes across many dangers (a bear, gangs, the Kings army) but not once did she give up, even if she does make a few mistakes along the way.

Eve went from being completely naive and innocent, only to have everything she's ever know turn to chaos and doubts and falsehoods. She struggles at first to truly understand the magnitude of what was going on around her until she sees it with her own eyes. And everything starts to fall into place and make perfect sense. She makes friends in people she never thought she would, and trusts some she never should (or would) have trusted. And I have to mention the epigraph for this book because it encompasses every bit of what happens to Eve.

Maybe I really don't want to know
what's going on.
 Maybe I'd rather not know. Maybe I
couldn't bear to know.
The Fall was a fall from innocence to knowledge.
-Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale 

In Eve's world the New America, girls are taken to Schools at the age of 5. They learn the arts; they learn trades; they learn the dangers of boys and men and why they should be feared. They learn the dangers of the forest and how there are gangs and wild animals just waiting to rip them to shreds, among other things. New America is a very new place. Eve can still remember what it was like before her mother was taken from her by the Plague. The memories are few, but they are there. A man rose up as King, to try to rebuild what was left of the country and its people. And Eve is put right in the middle of it all. In escaping, for the first time in her life, she is able to make her own decisions, though very often they are the wrong ones, and she is never safe. Not in her School where she thought she was safest, not in camps in the woods with her new found allies, not in the deserted towns left empty from the deaths of the plague. There is only one place that can offer safety; one place that holds hope, and it is this place that Eve searches for throughout the course of this book.

I loved every minute of reading this book, which is clear by the fact that I could barely put it down. I had to know what happened to Eve. I had to know if she ever makes it to Califia and if she find happiness along the way with her new friends and the guy she falls for while searching for this safe haven. While the ending left me devastated and dying for more, it didn't feel unfinished.

If you love a good dystopian and a girls 'fall from innocence to knowledge' then this book is for you.


I rate this book: