Eve of Man

EVE OF MAN by Giovanna and Tom Fletcher is the latest in YA dystopias. In the story, a phenomenon of male-only births have occurred inexplicably for fifty years, until one day, Eve is born. As she is the only hope for perpetuating humanity, Eve is kept in a tower high above the masses. She is cared for and tended to, all in preparation for the day she will be ready to mate. Three males have been selected as matches for her based on a variety of criteria. However, when the meetings with the first two guys go horribly wrong, Eve is completely rocked. She begins to question all she’s been raised believing, and when she finally faces the truth, she wonders if humanity is even worth saving.

The premise of this book is compelling, especially in a time when gender and sex are such popular topics of conversation. The authors take these complex ideas and whittle them down to a really simple bottom line- we need both men and women to ensure the future of the human race. Yet, though it’s clear that without women being born, we will go extinct, it’s hard to believe such a catastrophe could happen. Throughout the entire read, I kept waiting for the authors to explain why the scientists couldn’t bioengineer a female child. We are already creating designer babies in present-day, which makes it confusing why that technology wouldn’t have advanced further in the future, especially when the other tech is highly sophisticated. The authors do say that naturally conceived girls, during the fifty year span, all died in utero. Perhaps, that is also what happened during scientific experiments. Regardless, I needed a more concrete answer on why science was failing and hypotheses of why this happened in the first place.

When I was able to suspend my disbelief, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I preferred reading Bram’s sections, but I liked Eve’s too. Both of them reminded me of Tris and Four from DIVERGENT, in their relationships to their parents and in their relationship to each other. Bram has a powerful and abusive father, like Four, and Eve learns her late mother isn’t who she thought, just like Tris discovers. I appreciated that EVE OF MAN had similar tone and themes to DIVERGENT, purposeful or not, and also liked how the authors choose to introduce Bram to Eve via Holly. It was really smart and was the best developed plot point in the story.

Overall, EVE OF MAN is a great first chapter in a forthcoming trilogy. It gave me all the action and government deception I expect from dystopias and I can’t wait to read the future sequels.