Review Detail

Undoubtedly, the most terrifying dystopias for me personally are the ones that involve the role of women in society after a calamity. Eve falls in with the like of Wither, The Handmaid's Tale, and Bumped. If reproductivity suffers, if a large segment of the population dies in some horrific event, if people are dying off younger, then women quickly lose the status they fought for decades to accomplish and become property, needed only to push out babies.

This subset of dystopias is terrifying largely because it requires very little suspension of disbelief to imagine such things coming to pass should something catastrophic occur. For all that women are much more equal now, I have no doubt that our position would not revert back to slavery and breeding chattel swiftly if that was viewed as the only way to save mankind from extinction. What's worse is that on some level, that response does make sense. What if that really was the only way for mankind to survive? I like to think there would be other ways, but what if there weren't? Is it worth it?

In Eve, the population was decimated by a plague. Many perished, including Eve's mother. Orphans, of which there were many, were gathered up and put into schools and educated until they were old enough to be of use one way or another. In Eve's school, she and her classmates are taught about the evil ways of men, of how they only want one thing and of the dangers of falling in love. They teach these lessons with examples from literature, such as Romeo and Juliet and Anna Karenina.

For the most part, this was a really interesting read, although I did find my attention waning as I got further into the story. There was a lot of running around and not a lot of plot advancement. One weird thing was a scene where Eve mentioned that she didn't remember the date of her birthday, although she did remember her mom singing a birthday song to her. Eve was young when the plague hit and she went into the school, where birthdays were not celebrated, but what kid does not remember their birthday? I mean, come on. If she was old enough at the time to have such clear memories of her mom, then she would totally remember when her birthday was.

All in all, a decent dystopian read and a chilling view of how quickly the status of women could fall. I sure hope nothing like this comes to pass.