Eve is dystopian fiction, with Anna Carey creating a post apocalyptic world that seems to have few adults and an abundance of children.

A fascinating look at a world post plague that seems to have killed off mostly adults and left large numbers of children orphaned. The world painted is horrifying, with girls raised in orphanages for girls, taught that men are evil creatures who only want to rape and murder them. These girls are well educated with a promise of hope that they will go onto change the world, but even Romeo and Juliet is twisted to show how Romeo is an evil bastard who leads Juliet callously to her death. So the story becomes an interesting and powerful example of our need to think for ourselves and not believe everything we read/are told.

Although the setting is emotive and horrifying and believable, the characters are not as much. The author has tried to give us believable characters, but doesn’t quite hit the mark with the sea of clichéd teens.

We’ve got our main protagonist, Eve, who has lived this very, sheltered life, almost dies from a complete lack of ability to look after herself when she suddenly finds herself alone in the wilderness. She doesn’t suddenly find super powers to build a house out of matchsticks, but she’s just so bland. Lots of teenage angst, but she doesn’t really seem to grow.

A secondary character, Andrene, on the other hand obliviously planed her escape, and taught herself the skills she would need to survive, she’s the bad girl, the one with the brains and the past, who’s distant because she doesn’t need anyone, who of course turns into the best friend that everyone misunderstood.

Meeting with the boys was just a little too clichéd. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this story, it’s just that the characters themselves are lacking in originally or depth.

The biggest problem I, personally, have with reading this style of novel as an adult is that it is supposed to introduce the reader to worst and the best of humanity, with great highs and horrifying lows, and rarely a shortage on death and destruction. Unfortunately as an adult reading this I already have the life experience and I’m not innocent or naive to the depraved side of humanity, so rather than learning any valuable life lessons I just find myself disturbed and upset. It’s a re-hash of ideas and experiences I’m already familiar with, but the story itself doesn’t offer anything new or insightful, it’s a book that is designed to make you think about the greater world from a new perspective, if you’ve never thought about that world in that manner previously.

Overall, I think it’s a well written story, that readers new to dystopian fiction will find delivers a powerful story, but old-hands will find the character development a letdown.