Title: Eve of Man
Author: Giovanna and Tom Fletcher
Edition: Paperback
Rating: 3/5
This is a YA dystopia with an interesting premise. For sixteen years, Eve has been protected. Raised by a team of older women, she is the last girl on earth – and the only woman of childbearing age. No one knows why girls stopped being born, but everyone knows that Eve is going to save humanity. Three young men have been carefully selected as potential partners for Eve, and she has always known what is expected of her. But a chance meeting with one of the young men who helps to run her perfect sanctuary changes everything, and Eve begins to question what she wants.
It’s an engaging story, to begin with. We meet Eve in her beautiful, isolated tower. We meet her carers – the ‘mothers’ – and her hologram best friend, Holly. Eve knows that she is about to meet the potential partners who have been painstakingly chosen for her. As the meetings draw closer we see her begin to doubt her conviction that chosing one of the men and having children – hopefully girls – is what she really wants.
We also meet Bram, one of the human ‘pilots’ behind Holly’s hologram. He’s grown up with Eve, wearing Holly’s hologram and acting as Eve’s best friend. Eve has no idea who is behind Holly’s face and voice, and they are never supposed to meet. When they do, briefly, everything changes, and they will both be forced to choose between their own happiness and the future of the human race.
I don’t know why I didn’t connect with this book. I liked Eve, and I loved all her ‘mothers’. I liked Bram, and his team of pilots. The setup was intriguing and the theme of environmental destruction was extremely relevant. I found myself wanting more science, and more insight into the environmental crisis – but that wouldn’t be possible with Eve and Bram as the only narrators. Neither of them knows the full truth about their world, and about the efforts to save humanity, so their limited views make perfect sense in the context of the story.
Eve is a strong narrator, who moves from a girl who accepts everything she has been brought up to believe at the start of the book, to a young woman daring to challenge her place in the world. The story reflects teenage anxieties about sex and relationships, and about breaking away from the expectations of parents, teachers, and communities. Eve’s role as the only person in the world who can have children dials these anxieties up to eleven, and ensures that her decisions matter.
There is plenty of action and danger, and there are lies to uncover and secrets to reveal, but somehow I wasn’t drawn in. I wanted to like this book. I wanted to enjoy the story, and feel wrapped up in Eve’s dilemmas, but maybe this is a story that works best for readers who identify more closely with Eve. Don’t let me put YA readers off – this is a book perfectly pitched at its intended teenage audience.
Have you read Eve of Man? What did you think of the story? Did the characters grab you? Click through to the full blog to access the comments section, and share your thoughts! No spoilers, though – you can post those on GoodReads!
Review cross-posted to GoodReads.
Please keep your comments YA appropriate. Be patient! We want to hear from you, but comments are moderated, and may take some time to appear.
