Review Detail

“The Quiet Unraveling of Eve Ellaway” by Melanie Hooyenga follows main character, Eve, as she struggles to figure out her identity. There is another part of her, a part that has overtaken her in many ways, brought about by the kidnapping of her twin sister, Gen, when they were only one month old. When that happened, Eve grew up conforming to the world her father wanted her mother to see, causing Eve to basically split her personality, sometimes being Eve, and other times being Gen. The girls were originally named after someone named Genevieve.

Eve’s mother lives a life of solitude, set apart from not only the world, but reality. She waits on visits from Gen that Eve puts on, and Eve is troubled by her mother’s clear preference for the imaginary version of Gen that Eve is acting out. Her father isn’t any help, as he began the charade so long ago that he doesn’t know how to escape it, nor does he seem to want to, as a means to protect his wife’s and Eve’s mother’s tenuous grip on sanity, but also to protect him from the consequences of the abuse he must know he has inflicted on his remaining daughter.

Friends are few and far between for Eve, but she tries to make herself what they want her to be so she can maintain some sense of normalcy in a life that has always been full of struggles and uncertainty. Her desperate desire to escape her home life and go to Northwestern for college is finally on the horizon, but so is her lack of a grip on her life. The Gen she has created is so much a part of her mind that Eve doesn’t know how to separate from it, nor does she want to, as she finds the Gen voice in her head weirdly comforting, though she doesn’t know how much it is also her undoing.

There are a couple of majorly unexpected twists that pop up that will make readers gasp and wonder how they would not only cope with a reality like this being thrust upon them, but how they would shape their future after dealing with severe traumas. It sometimes seems like everything will turn out okay, but then another surprise is thrown into the mix, and everything turns on its head.

Melanie Hooyenga has crafted a story that deals not only with mental health, but also friendship, anxiety, bullying, grief, loss, and so much more. The novel is gripping and readers will find themselves invested in breaking through Eve’s walls and seeing just how she deals with the life that has been just as much shaped for her as by her.