Eve: A Gripping YA Dystopian Adventure of First Love and Survival After a Deadly Virus (Eve, 1)

I loved this book!!!! I was very excited to read this!!!! After the Plague hit, orphan girls were sent schools while the boys were being sent to labor camps. The girls go to school thinking they will graduate and be able to learn a trade at the city of sand. On the night before Eve's graduation, Arden tells her the real truth behind the schools. Eve realizes that once she graduates, she will be used for breeding. She then escapes the school. She has no idea where she is going, only that she has to find Califia. She ends up running into Arden again, ad they band together. They also run into a boy who lives out in the wild named Caleb. Caleb proves to Eve that mostly everything she has learned was a lie. Arden and Eve stay in the dugout with Caleb for awhile until more danger finds them. Eve is wanted by the King. I really liked the characters in this story. Arden is very tough. It was nice to be able to see her vulnerable side throughout the story. I also loved how I got to see the friendship build between Eve and Arden. Eve started out as one of those goody goody characters. She couldn't do anything wrong. Then she escaped and had to face things she never thought she would face. I loved being able to watch her grow and develop as a strong female character. Caleb was just a sweetheart. It was so romantic watching Eve and Caleb fall for each other. The females are taught that men are basically evil so it was nice to see Eve let her guard down and trust him. The story was well written and very original. Dystopian novels are becoming more and more popular. I for one, love them!!!! The story was action-packed and fast-paced. I wasn't expecting that ending. It was another ending that I cried over. Just to know that he helped her even though he knew the outcome made me cry even harder. It shows what true love really is. What a cliffhanger!!!! I can't wait to read the sequel Once!!! Hopefully they are reunited!!!!!!

To say that Eve surprised me would be a massive, massive understatement. The only reason I picked up this book to begin with was because I have an ARC of Once, Eve's sequel, sitting around, and I felt bad for neglecting it. I had fairly low expectations before going into Eve, and quite honestly, I expected my rating at the end to be at most two or three stars, after reading some of the negative reviews that almost assured I would have a similar experience. And I think it may be because of those very reviews that I had an experience almost completely opposite with Eve. Before even opening the pages Eve, I expected a boring read with mediocre characters and horrible world-building, as that is what most of the negative reviews led me to believe, but instead, what I got with Eve was a disturbing and emotionally raw novel with great characters that made me cry a countless amount of times. I found Eve to be a powerful and beautifully written little novel, and it was one that punched me in the gut over and over and over again. In the world of Eve, a disastrous plague has swept the entire nation and left ninety-eight of the entire population dying. After the aftermath of the plague, and after seeing her loved ones slowly fall at the hands of the plague, Eve is brought into the School - a housing place for young girls. At the School, the girls are fed, taught, and treated to until they turn eighteen. However, a day before her graduation from the School, Eve escapes to find out what really happens to the women after they graduate. Horrified by what she finds out to be the truth, she escapes from the School in a mission to go to a place called Califia; a place where she will be safe. But how will Eve, having been sheltered and kept from the outside world almost all her life, know who to trust? As I am writing this review, I am struggling to find another instance where a book has had as great of an emotional impact on me as Eve has. In fact, upon reading the very first pages in Eve, I found myself tearing up. This book is about love, it is about loss, it is about moving on, and, alongside that, it is about a young girl trying to run away from her future while also escaping from a deadly plague. And it handles all of that amazingly. "I'd once read about amputees, and how they had pains where their arms and legs used to be. Phantom limbs, they were called. I'd always thought that was the best way to describe my feelings about my mother. She was now just an ache for something I'd had lost." - quote taken from Eve Eve is not the smartest heroine you'll ever read about, or the strongest, and she is at times a bit selfish and difficult to like, but I just found that to be the effects of her being sheltered and monitored and lied to her entire life. She's at times naive, and she is imperfect, but she learns from her mistakes and she feels guilt for her wrong decisions, seemingly miniscule and incapable of harm to her, that, unfortunately, impacted other people's lives. Eve feels regret for those decisions she's made, and she betters herself as a person through those wrong decisions. Or, in other words, she's human. And she's a lot more of a believable character than half of the heroines in young adult dystopians on the market today. As well as Eve, the secondary characters, and Eve's love interest, Caleb, were incredibly likable and developed throughout the course of the novel. I have to say that my favorite character in Eve was Arden, and that my favorite relationship in Eve was the one between her and Eve. The two girls are incredibly different and not ideal friends at first, but throughout the novel they learn that they are similar in many ways, and their relationship has one of the most interesting and well-developed dynamics I've had the pleasure to read about this year. I only wish I could say the same for the relationship between the two central characters, Eve and Caleb. While I definitely found Caleb to be a likable character, and Eve an at times likable character, I was never really sold on their relationship together. It was sweet, and it wasn't insta-love, but to me it just felt like there was no basis behind the purpose of the romance. Though I guess sometimes relationships are like that in the real world, as well. While the novel itself is certainly not without its flaws - the biggest one pertaining to the world-building, or lack thereof, I found Eve to be an engaging and powerful read, set in a grisly and disturbing world that is scarily possible, and the emotional impact it had on me is one that I am sure to remember.

Read It Thru the Night in 1 sitting!! I couldn't put this book down. It was poetic and spellbinding. I would go back and reread some parts because they were so good. I stayed up all night reading it and when I was almost done, jumped on Amazon and got the 2nd book in the series, "Once". Eve makes a lot of stupid moves, but it's not her fault. It is pointed out in the beginning of the book: she's book smart, NOT street smart. That is SO true, and in life as in the book that can make all the difference in the world when you're fighting to survive. I loved the characters and the stories. I wish there were more details, however horrid, of what happens exactly across the bridge once the girls graduate. I also don't know WHAT exactly happened in a certain book altering conflict with Leif, a character in the book. My question is was or wasn't she? It wasn't really clear, and I'm not going to be any more clear either. You'll figure it out 1 way or another. Caleb, yum yum YUM!! Sweet, cute, the knight in shining armor coming in on his white (or in this case black) horse to save the damsel in distress. Loved him. Want him. This book made me laugh, it made my pulse pound, it even made me cry, and that's nearly impossible to accomplish. I have NO IDEA what the negative reviews are about, this story makes complete sense in the context with which the girls grew up in, and the boys. There were some slight editing errors, but nothing major. Regardless, I'm glad I ignored them and bought this book. There's a free dystopian sampler if you want to get a feel for the book with Eve in it (search "free dystopian sample"). My recommendation? Get the book, and get it now as I feel it's amazing!! I hope you will as well, and I'm sure you'll be happy. It's a great book that makes you feel. Bravo!!

***this review contains spoilers*** i have heard eve being described as the next young adult sensation, compared to twilight and the hunger games. i think that so many books are being feted as the next big thing and are, perhaps, being written to become it. this creates novels that exist to please readers- not a negetive at all- but i find myself disappointed that rather then creating new and unique books, authors find a formula to follow and books are produced en masse with less value placed on originality and consistancy. i don't want to sound like i hated this book, i quite enjoyed it, finished it over three days. the issue is that it is forgettable, like many other young adult dystopian novels. i really couldn't find anything so special that remained in my thoughts after closing the book. to be blunt, i didn't care about the characters, their world or the story. there is the required heroine, loved by all and somehow extra special, the love interest, a mysterious boy whom she falls in love with for no apparent reason, and the complication that keeps them apart or floundering in the restrictions of their own feelings and the world they live in. add some angsty thoughts and a "baddie"- in this case the king- and you have yourself a novel for young adults. the main flaw, i believe, has been touched on by an earlier reviewer- the world doesn't make sense. the whole set-up for the novel is not fully thought out and developed. girls are raised in schools until they are old enough to give birth without respite, strapped down to beds and forced into continuous pregnancies. boys are placed in forced labor camps. the rich live it up in the city with the king. ok... why are the girls given a high quality boarding school experience, brainwashed into thinking all men- bar the king- are rapists and evil? when they graduate, they are moved into the birthing buildings. why educate the girls in that way? if such intense brainwashing was possibly, why not simply educate girls that their role is to be mothers and that their way in the world was achieved through pregnancy? why the huge deception with the sudden reveal? why not convince girls to particpate in repopulation voluntarily? if the king has such powers to coerce, why such a complex, flawed system? another question i have about this world is the complete segregation of sexes. i will admit, i am a prude, i don't want to read graphic sex scenes and prefer not to read steamy romance but have to ask the question: what about sexual attraction and needs? as the girls reach their teenage years, why don't they experience any sexual desire? why is califia just women? why not couples trying to live a "normal" existance of families and patnerships? there is no sign of attraction between girls, no sames-sex relaionships. it is as though desire has been erased from all people, yet eve certainly shows that once in the presence of males, she starts to feel attraction and wanting. listen to any conversation of girls aged 15 and up, you are pretty much guarenteed that it will involve boys. i just don't understand how the entire world managed to desexualise itself completely. if eve can break the brainwashing and fall in love, what stops others from romantic dreams and desires? it doesn't make sense. on top of that, i really don't see why so many people sacrifice themselves to save eve. friends act as bait, allies are shot, the love interest is badly wounded and then leaves eve behind in califia, bleeding and wandering back to the mad world, admitting that he always knew that he wouldn't enter califia and that it was more important for him to get eve there, regardless of himself. why is eve so special that people will die for her? how is she better than arden or wren? it is true that eve is selected by the king but as a character, i really didn't find anything that wonderful about her. she is so passive. aspects of her don't add up- she is so sheltered that she has no survival skills and yet she manages to hop into a car and instantly teach herself how to drive. when she is needed to be helpless, she is as useless as a limp flower but then she can rise up and achieve the impossible... again, i am not saying this is a bad book, it just isn't brilliant. it is a good young adult read that requires nothing from the reader. this is a good bedtime book, something to flip through while easing into sleep, unchallenging and not very involving. i am a reader that asks questions. growing up, i was that annoying kid in the classroom always asking "why?" i was the one wanting to know every tiny detail. the flaws of this novel come out when placed under close inspection. if you are happy to relax and accept the author's premise without any queries then you will likely enjoy it a lot. if you want to pull apart and analyse it, the problems arise. pehaps i should tell myself not to read so deeply into a ya novel but the lack of logic and consistancy bothered me, tickling at the back of my mind. i like a concept that has been thought out and developed so that it does not crumble with the slight jab of a question. this plot needed to be worked on a little more, those kinks ironed out before being published. it was enjoyable but frustrating.

This book is another dystopia story. The world has been almost been wiped out by a plague that took most of the adults. It follows a girl named Eve who has lived most of her live (from the age of five) in an all girls school. The school has been teaching them everything including to both fear and hate men. Saying that they are only - to manipulate the minds and emotions of women. They take classes in preparation for when they graduate and they will go to another building to learn a trade before they will be transported to the City of Sand (which is where the king is). But when Eve finds out that all she has been told was a lie. She starts trying to escape school. Diving into the forest that has scared her for so long. This book I have heard is compared with twilight which I do not agree. Eve is in no way the love sick puppy that Bella was for Edward. She has her own mind and does not fall apart when her man leaves her world. She finds that she is filled with a strength that even she didn't know she had. This story follows her venture into the forest, where she finds out that everything she learned in school was a lie and it was only intended to keep them in line. To keep them afraid and obedient. She finds her love in Caleb, a boy who respects who she is and apparently doesn't want to sleep with her. Now she is forced into rethinking and relearning what everything she was taught to find the truth for herself. This book was awesome. I can't wait for the next one. It leaves us with a pretty amazing cliff hanger that made me cry. (SO HAVE TISSUES) One other think I wanted to say was that this book was very easy to read. I didn't feel like I missed anything. I didn't have to go back and reread a chapter or anything because I didn't understand it. So CUDOS to the writer and the editor. I hope that I will be fortunate enough to be placed on the ARC list for the next one.

Set in a harsh future that's been decimated by plague, in a world rebuilt upon lies and ruled over by a tyrant, Anna Carey's EVE is a fast-paced and gripping story filled with shocking surprises, heartbreak, betrayal and nail-biting suspense. When Eve discovers that everything she once knew is a lie and that the future she had envisioned is one that is nothing more than a dream, she is forced to flee and search for the one place in The New America where she will be safe - Califia. With nothing more than a few meager supplies and no idea how to survive in the savage world outside of School, Eve's journey is anything but easy and her chance at reaching safety is slim. But with her only other option being one that is far worse than death, there is no turning back. Hunted and alone, Eve will have to rely upon Arden, someone she'd always believed was her enemy, and put her trust in Caleb, someone she'd been warned should never be trusted, to have any hope of survival. But when she's betrayed, by someone she never would have suspected was capable of deceit, she finds herself in even greater danger than she might have faced on her own. And she must decide just how far she's willing to go and how much she's willing to risk losing in order to stay alive. In this first book in the trilogy, readers will be introduced to the disturbing world of The New America, where its youth are kept in the dark about what the future holds for them, and to its unlikely heroine, Eve. Eve may not be the most heroic of heroines or one who makes the most intelligent of decisions, but given her cloistered existence, her actions feel real to her character's development. And while much of the horrifying yet fascinating world the author created is not touched upon in EVE, as it is only the first installment in this series, readers will likely get to explore more of the world when Eve's journey continues in the sequel. Anna Carey has written an incredibly exciting story, set in a chilling future, with a variety of characters, both good and evil, that add to this story's appeal. The author has created a landscape that is heartless, a leader who is barbaric and a society whose rules only appear to benefit those at the top. And with a perilous journey, a love story that seems destined to be more bitter than sweet and a dramatic ending with an unexpected twist, EVE delivers on its promise to entertain.

This is definitely one of my favorite YA dystopian/post-apocalyptic books! In a boarding school of orphaned girls, Eve is beautiful, very smart (valedictorian of her class), and a little naive due to being isolated from the rest of the world for most of her life. The story starts out with Eve, her classmates, and teachers celebrating the day before graduation. Sometime during the party, Eve wanders off and finds one of her classmates, Arden, making an escape from the school. Eve learns from Arden that after graduation, the girls shouldn't be expecting to continue their education to learn a trade as they've been told. Eve hasn't ever suspected that the teachers might be untruthful to them, but this gets her thinking. She wonders why they have to take so many vitamins all the time, why they are always encouraged to eat plenty of food, and why she never sees girls that had previously graduated from their school. She sneaks away that night to find out and what she learns is pretty horrifying. She escapes the school and she's out on her own in the aftermath of a society that has long-before suffered from a plague. She eventually finds Arden and they help each other out in some scary situations in the wild and on the run. They meet Caleb, who they both are suspicious of at first, since they've been taught from their teachers that men are dangerous. However, they do run into a few men that are actually very dangerous. I really liked Caleb - funny, understanding, heroic - and most of the boys in his "family." I really hope everyone gets a chance to read this 'cause I just totally loved it, but be aware that it ends in a bit of a - ok, TOTAL - cliffhanger. Good thing Once, book two in the series, comes out soon! I can't wait to pick my jaw back up off the ground!

Eve is not a terrible read, but it is what I like to think of as "meh." I don't really have any love/hate feelings for it. I think I'm just getting tired of dystopian novels. Perhaps if I'd read this book a couple years ago, I'd have enjoyed it more. But I was annoyed by the extremely naïve main character and the lack of world-building. The story starts off pretty well. The letter from Eve's mom at the beginning is very sweet and heartbreaking, and I enjoyed the prologue. I even highlighted a quote I liked on my Kindle. However, after the first few chapters, my interest started fading. I got seriously annoyed with the main character, the shockingly naïve Eve. Oh, Eve. Where do I start? Many reviewers have pointed to this example, and it definitely made me annoyed, too. In the first quarter of the book, Eve is out in the wild and stumbles across a bear cub, and she thinks it looks like Winnie the Pooh, so she decides to pet it. Because that's such a smart idea, right? I just wanted to shake some sense into her. After that scene, I pretty much lost hope for Eve. I know it's part of her character - that she was raised to be very innocent and naïve - but I just felt like she didn't have enough strength in her character to make me admire her. I kept thinking of her as a little girl instead of a teenager, which made the romance really awkward. Yeah...the romance. What does Caleb see in Eve? Thankfully there was no insta-love, but it still didn't make sense for him to fall in love with her. I also thought Caleb was a bit too perfect at times. Sure, he's nice and sweet, but...that's all he is. It made him a very bland character. And no, I am NOT trying to say that I don't like "good guys," because I much prefer "good guys" to the "bad boy" type. I just wish he had more of a personality. There's also the lack of world-building. I had so many questions I wanted explained, and I found the ending left me unsatisfied. It felt like hardly anything happened plot-wise. I've heard that the world-building improves later on in the series, but I don't really think I'm interested enough to pick up the sequel, unless I happen to see it at my library. I know some of my friends have enjoyed Eve. It just wasn't a great read for me.

A thrilling book based in the future! Action packed and full of excitement you won't be able to put this book down. Synopsis: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. This book was fascinating and extremely exciting. This might not be every YA lover's cup of tea, some people might not like the characters, the storyline, etc......But I loved it! I loved everything about it. A heart pounding adventure with brave characters.

Muy bien

I read this book in a day, I couldn't put it down I had to find out what happened, very engrossing. Not for someone suffering from depression though, there are some very sad/dark parts.

So I liked all the characters bar the main one as I found her not only useless but also not loyal at all to her friends or love interest. She literally could not do anything for herself till the last chapter and opened her mouth inappropriately even though she recognized she was brought up with bias. The book frustrated me and I won’t be reading on.

Having read many of the reviews on here, I was a tad sceptical about purchasing 'Eve'. That said, I am thoroughly pleased that I did, as I really enjoyed this book and couldn't put it down! Once the characters had been introduced, the action picked up and it became a definite page turner! Unlike many dystopian main characters, I have to say that I didn't particularly 'like' Eve from the outset. This is unusual, as I normally prefer the characters at the beginning and later on they become less likeable. I'm not sure why this was. Perhaps it was because she was the school valedictorian and I found it hard to believe that she would all of a sudden start questioning everything that she had been taught? Perhaps it was becuase I didn't have enough time to see what she was truly like in the school environment? Either way, I had some difficulty bonding with Eve at the start of this book, hence the 4 stars instead of 5. Nevertheless, once the plot picked up and Eve escaped, I started to like her more and more. I certainly liked the relationships that she formed with the other characters in the book. She was a caring mother-like figure when teaching Benny, Silas and others to read. She looked after Arden - who had always been quite cold to her - at her time of need. And then there's Caleb. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about their blossoming relationship, particularly as Eve battled with herself over her teachings at school. She had to constantly surpress what she had been taught about men and their malicious motives. For me, Caleb was a fantastic character. He didn't mock Eve's naivety, he was humorous and he also had a sensitve side. What's not to like? If you are still unsure about reading this book, I would say at least give it a go! You won't be bored because there's lots of action and little time is spent in one place; the characters are frequently on the move. There are lots of twists and turns throughout the novel, and I have to say, I didn't expect the ending. I didn't particularly like the ending (I'm not sure Eve would have really accepted it) but I was pleased with the surprise element.