After years of abuse and rejection, 19-year-old Evelyn Kingston is ready for a fresh start in a new city, where no one knows her name. The esteemed Billington University in sunny Southern California seems like the perfect place to reinvent herself—to live the life of an ordinary human.
But things at Billington aren’t as they seem. In a school filled with prodigies, socialites, and the leaders of tomorrow, Eve finds that the complex social hierarchy makes passing as a human much harder than she had anticipated. Even worse, Billington is harboring a secret of its own: Interlopers have infiltrated the university, and their sinister plans are targeted at chimeras—like Eve.
Instantly, Eve’s new life takes a drastic turn. In a time filled with chaos, is the world focusing on the wrong enemy? And when the situation at Billington shifts from hostile to dangerous, will Eve remain in the shadows, or rise up and fight?
*incoming long post*
*yes, I did change my ratings after sitting on this review for a while*
Oh man...this is going to be a tricky one to review. I love Jenna Moreci. She is a fabulous woman and her personality is amazing. Her videos are both informative and hilarious so to show my support, I bought Eve: The Awakening. I promised myself that I would always enter a book with no expectations because I've been bit in the ass multiple times. What happened you ask? I didn't follow my golden rule. My expectations were too damn high. I don't want to say I was completely letdown by this book because it was a fun read but there were problems that I couldn't ignore.
Summary of thoughts:
Let's start off with the positives.
Action:
This book had a ton of action and the ending was "up in your face" action. It was glorious and I like books that have enough action yet it doesn't overwhelm the story.
Characters:
Eve herself was an intriguing character. She went through a lot of hell over the years and seeing her go through it definitely pulled at my heartstrings. When it came to fighting, she fought hard and when she was thrown down, she picked herself back up and pushed forward. She cared about everyone around her even people who hated her and she was willing to sacrifice herself for them. I respected her for that. She at some points reminded me of one of my favorite quotes:
“We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.”
― Grant Morrison
Eve's friends were also interesting. They were hilarious, quirky, diverse, and willing to kick some serious ass. They were those friends who would go out of their way to help you hide a dead body.
Story:
The story was decent enough to keep me going. When Jenna spoke about the next evolutionary stage for humankind, I needed to know more. Would they look different? If they had any powers, what would they be? It was interesting learning about the Chimeras and how they awaken. The twists were unexpected and caught me off guard multiple times. I would think I had the story figured out then it hits you with, "nope! You got it all wrong!"
Now, let's go on to the negatives. First off, this book is marketed as a New Adult novel but reads like a YA novel. The only thing that makes it NA is that it takes place in college. Like, dats it.
Characters (negative):
Eve was strong and yes, she was a badass fighter but when it came to standing her ground, she wimped out. This made me angry. I kept yelling "do something! Do something!" at my poor kindle to no avail. She let people beat her, spit at her, call her names, and threaten her. They even went as far as trying to kill her yet she did nothing. She didn't fight back, she just stood there and took it. I guess the author was trying to show us how strong she really was which leads to the unbelievable factor of the story. Your entire city is against you, all of humanity is against you, your own family hates you, you watched your parents die, you were thrown in jail, harassed, treated like shit for years so how are you not broken? How did you not snap and give them a good reason to fear you? How did you not become the villain? She literally had nothing to keep her grounded yet I'm supposed to believe after all of the shit she went through, she came out sane? Batman had Alfred, superman had Lois Lane and his parents. If you look at these superhero comics, you can see they have something to keep them level-headed. Even though she's a Chimera, she's still human and humans can only take so much emotional pain. I didn't understand how she survived and the reason that's given is that "she's strong." None of it makes sense! I wanted to know the what, how and the why.
Even though I found her friends interesting, they were stereotyped. Actually, the entire book was filled with nothing but stereotypes. The Indian friend was a super-genius doctor and he was only 17. Of course the hacker has to be emo and since Eve went to a private school for rich kids, of course they all have to be spoiled rotten brats. I'm going to relate this to a real life occurrence and tell you why this is wrong. One of my friends currently attends a prestigious music university where most of the population has money. She made friends there and not once did she say they were snobbish, spoiled, mean and hateful. She even told me when she was tight on money and went out with them to eat, they offered to pay for her. Now, I'm not saying spoiled rich kids don't exist. Believe me they do, I've met a few but an entire college full of them is very hard to believe.
The Hate:
Everybody hates Chimeras. They think they're unintelligent animals and not human beings even though they're the next step in human evolution. They don't have any rights and normal humans think they should die out even though Chimeras are the next step in human evolution. According to humans, Chimeras shouldn't breathe the same air as human beings even though they're the next step in human evolution. Yep, I'm repeating myself because the hate doesn't make any god damn sense. We are never given a reason as to why the hate is so strong and why they should die. Why were they calling them animals when there's little to no difference compared to human DNA? Telekinesis, super strength, super healing, super speed are abilities that scientist today are looking into developing. At least once in our lives, we were asked if we could choose one superpower, what would it be? Suddenly, humanity starts to develop those superpowers and people start to lose their shit. Government officials are telling people to treat them as if they were a lesser species even though they know Chimeras are the next step in human evolution. How did we go from 0 to 100? What triggered this mass hysteria?
The Romance:
The romance I didn't care for. I don't care for romance period but the fact that this was insta-love made me care less which is why this section is so short. All you have to know is insta-love.
The Story:
I mentioned in the beginning that it was interesting finding out more about the Chimeras and the twists but that's where my interest stopped. The story read like a super cheesy YA novel and it was basically Mean Girls meets sci-fi. The amount of angst was absolutely ridiculous. I'm not saying angst should be tossed out the window but the story shouldn't be centered around angst.
And good god was this book unnecessarily lengthy! She could have cut it down to 300 pages. I'm 99.9% sure each chapter was at least 40 pages long. There were so many things that didn't need to be there or events that could have just been touched on. I got so bored, I skimmed. At times, it felt like a chore to get through and when I reached the end, I was like:
The Antagonist:
The villain was the most villainous villain he ever did villain. Have you ever villain a villainous villain before? Point is, he was a villain in every villainous way. I guess this is a personal preference but I want my villains not to be villainous. I like intelligent villains, villains that keep you at the edge of your seat, villains that keep you guessing, villains that don't monologue about their evil plans, villains that don't fit in the villain mold.
To basically sum up my feelings, I was disappointed and I blame myself for going into it with high expectations but at the same time, I feel as though if I went into it with no expectations, this would be a 1 star review. I really wanted to like this book, I really did, I just couldn't get over the glaring issues I had.
Ratings: 2/5 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment