EVE by Anna Carey

YA Post-Apocalyptic/Dystopia

200 pages

Available Oct. 4, 2011

Review copy provided by publisher (via Amazon Vine)

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.

Positive: The dystopia of Eve's world. A massive plague wiped out the majority of the population. The U.S. government fell. A King rose in its place and he rules with a velvet glove -- one that covers an iron fist. He's found a way to rebuild and repopulate the country on the backs of the orphans of the plague.

Positive: Arden. At School, she's a girl Eve and her friends loved to hate but she's so much smarter than all of them put together. She figures out what's really going on with the Graduates and takes off but not before telling Eve about the atrocities the King commits in the name of rebuilding. She's also got enough sense to learn how to live outside the walls of the School, to figure out how to survive in the wilderness.

Wish: A little more complexity to this story. It's a pretty simple plotline: girl finds out terrible secret about her world; girl escapes; girl runs into trouble and is rescued by cute boy; they both run into trouble; they figure a way out. The end.

Wish: That Eve weren't such a wimp. Unfortunately for her, she's a product of her environment. She wasn't raised to be brave. She was raised--brainwashed, actually--to be afraid of pretty much everything except for the King. Men? Hideous monsters who only want one thing. Wild dogs? They'll eat you. Anyone outside the walls of the cities? Wild, uncivilized savages who'd just as soon kill you as look at you. She's completely unprepared to leave the School and, without Arden, would have died within days. Still, I prefer my main characters to have a bit more gumption.

Overall: While it's not a stand-out amongst the vast array of dystopian novels currently on the market, EVE is a great starter for those who haven't yet dipped their toes in this genre.

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