THE FIRST GIRL BORN IN FIFTY YEARS.
THEY CALLED HER EVE . . .
All her life Eve has been kept away from the opposite sex. Kept from the truth of her past.
But at sixteen it's time for Eve to face her destiny. Three potential males have been selected for her. The future of humanity is in her hands. She's always accepted her fate.
Until she meets Bram.
Eve wants control over her life. She wants freedom.
But how do you choose between love and the future of the human race?"
I tried to like this, I really did. On paper it should be right up my street. Dystopian YA, female lead, ideas of gender suppression - but I just found it incredibly simplistic and uninspiring. It all just feels a little bit ‘been there, done that’ with a rather unsophisticated take on The Handmaid’s Tale, and this idea that women have been oppressed and controlled, which seems to be a recurrent theme in dystopian fiction at the moment. The writing style is very overly descriptive in terms of feelings, which I don’t think really works here, as nothing is left for the reader to interpret and develop their own opinions. It’s all telling, with no subtleties, which I think would have helped elevate the text.
The world building is also rather limited. Other than an overview at the beginning, which gives an outline into the current state of the planet and humanities apparent lack of respect for the environment due to no future generations to pass it to, there’s little explanation as to why the world is how it is. Why are no female being born? What exactly happened? Would same sex relationships come to be excepted? Would women become revered or hunted? Would large age gaps in couples be okay? Would matriarchal cults start up? Would a world full of mainly men really result in global catastrophes?I find this slightly condescending to believe. Perhaps this will be expanded on in future literature, but I really think more time should have been spent trying to flesh out the world that I was suppose to care about. The glimpses we see of life outside the dome were some of my favourite segments, and I found the hints of environmental destruction and how the ‘Freevers’ live far more interesting than any character in the dome.
Eve and Bram, as the two narrators, have very distinct voices and it was easy to differentiate when each of them is in control of the narrative which helped with the flow of the story. However, they do unfortunately suffer from what comes across as instalove, and I found quite a lot of their scenes together quite cringy - especially the gushy declarations of love. We’re given a background to suggest that Eve and Bram have ‘grown up’ together and know each other well, but they’ve never so much as touched. It’s a very ‘clean’ romance, which is rather childish and simple but to me it also feels more like infatuation, and the love of the unknown rather than romantic love - which makes the second half of the book and the motives behind it even harder to understand.
A major issue that I found in the book is this very clear divide in the story into two distinctive parts. The first half is very Eve focused, and centres around her life in the dome and her relationships with Bram and the ‘Mothers’ - the ageing women who care for her. The second half is very much more of a revolutionary fast paced action story. I found it quite jarring, although I did enjoy the second half more. However, again I found Bram’s story a little too ‘easy’ for him. Everything falls into place with very little struggle and strife, and his character goes from beaten down son of high powered genius to revolutionary leader without any real believable development of character. In comparison, Eve comes across increasingly more like a damsel in distress as the story progresses, with little ability to really fight for herself without the help of others.
This could have been a good story about gender dynamics and the distribution of power in a world devoid of females and the continuing struggle to preserve the female race. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t enjoy it was much as I wanted as I felt it wasted its premise.
Will try the next book in the series to see if they explore any of the concepts more deeply.
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