Book Review: Eve & Adam by Michael Grant & Katharine Applegate [Audiobook]

 
 
After an accident, Evening is taken to her mother's pharmaceutical complex to heal, where she's tasked with using a genetics program to create the perfect boy. But while she's there, she also meets a real boy named Solo and learns some secrets about herself and her mother's company.

Book Cover - Eve & Adam by Michael Grant & Katharine Applegate
Title: Eve & Adam
Pages: 302
My Rating: 2 Stars
More Info: Goodreads, Amazon, Publisher
 

Review:

Well, this one wasn’t for me.

Eve was way too chill about her speedy healing. She was clearly healing at a rate that was no where near normal, but she just kept shrugging it off like, “Must be the pain meds!” Your leg was literally severed from your body and took a 14-hour operation to reattach, your arm was crushed, you had stitches and bruises on your face, and you think it’s normal to be bruise-free, stitch-free, pain-free, and entirely clear-headed three days later??? They kind of tried to explain this away *SPOILER* (she was genetically modified at a young age, so she was just used to always healing fast and never really thought about it) *END SPOILER*, but I didn’t buy it. You’d still notice something that extreme.

She was also way too chill about having injuries in the first place. She was a runner and an artist, and yet she didn’t even seem to care about the fact that her leg and arm might never be the same.

Eve was way too chill about everything, actually. Her life went from relatively normal to suddenly being full of some seriously messed up and heavy shit (including shady science experiments, gang violence, and murder), but you wouldn’t know it from her reactions and inner monologue. At the end, *SPOILER* she literally killed someone, and thirty minutes later she was just flirting with a boy like it was all good. Her only really thoughts about it were that she’d seen some gore while in the hospital (don’t even get me started on that, because what?), but it was still hard to see brain matter on the floor. That was it. She killed him in self-defense, I was fully on her side, but killing someone, even in self-defense, still has an effect on people. *END SPOILER* I don’t know if the authors thought their intended audience wouldn’t be able to handle heaviness because of their age or something, but then, maybe don’t include it at all? Just glossing over the consequences of things is a weird solution.

The characters felt younger than they were, although I couldn’t figure out if that was more to do with the writing or the audiobook narration (Eve’s narrator sounded young). I feel like this was more of a middle grade book, written with that age in mind, even though the characters were 17.

A lot of things seemed so random and unnecessary. There was all this stuff about Eve’s friend’s boyfriend getting in trouble with a gang, and I still don’t understand why it was included, especially since Eve seemed so emotionally unaffected by it, and I don’t think it was ever resolved. To be honest, even the whole “creating the perfect boy” thing seemed somewhat pointless, except that it related to the shady experiments, and I guess maybe it taught Eve something about how people don’t need to be perfect?

In the end, there was a lot left unexplained and unresolved. The conclusion to this was just so rushed and unsatisfying, and it was like no one was really affected by anything except they now had romantic partners to smooch. This is listed as the first in a series on Goodreads, but the book was published nearly eight years ago, it ended in a way that seemed like it was meant to be a standalone, and I saw one person say it’s marked as a series because there’s a short prequel, so I don’t think there are any more answers coming.

The audiobook narrators (Jenna Lamia, Holter Graham) did a fine job though. I don’t think it’s their fault I didn’t like this one.

Overall, I clearly had some plot issues, and I never really got invested in these characters or their story. If you can suspend your disbelief though and deal with some unresolved plot threads, maybe you’ll enjoy it more than I did.

 

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Talk to me!

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12 thoughts on “Book Review: Eve & Adam by Michael Grant & Katharine Applegate [Audiobook]

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  1. Greg

    “Your leg was literally severed from your body and took a 14-hour operation to reattach, your arm was crushed, you had stitches and bruises on your face, and you think it’s normal to be bruise-free, stitch-free, pain-free, and entirely clear-headed three days later???” Haha can I have a healing ability like that???

    I love the premise of this. Sounds like it skews younger than I would like, though, so I’d probably have an issue w/ that too. The rushed bits sound iffy as well. sorry this one kinda lagged!

  2. Becky @ A Fool's Ingenuity

    I was about to say this book sounded pretty cool from the summary…. and then I read your review and now I’m like ‘where is the book I thought we were gonna get?’ because it doesn’t sound like the same story. It definitely sounds like maybe a slightly younger audience might have been in mind, but then there seems like there is a level of violence here that is not OK for a younger audience so who knows, maybe the authors genuinely thought these actions were cool (sociopaths anyone?). I don’t know, sounds like there was a cool idea with the genetic modification but then none of the follow through for it. Or maybe it was just a bad MC ruining the story, who knows.

    1. Kristen Burns

      Right? It sounded so cool. I do think it was for a younger audience, but that’s why I find some of the stuff they included so weird, like the violence and gang stuff, esp since they just kind of ignored all consequences.

  3. Karen Alderman

    I read this years ago and apparently gave it four stars but don’t remember it fondly lol I think my tastes have changed so much.

    I do remember thinking it was fun but not a stand out. It was definitely towards a younger YA crowd with familiar tropes but fun enough for me.

    Karen @ For What It’s Worth

  4. Olivia Roach

    Rushed endings do get under my skin. So this is one I read when I was much younger… say somewhere between 12-14 and I feel like it might just work for those of that age audience? My sister read it at that age too and really enjoyed it. But I feel like nowadays we would be less thrilled by it… hard to tell without rereading it but I don’t particularly want to. Sorry you didn’t like it at all.

    1. Kristen Burns

      Yeah I do think it might work better for a younger audience, but I’d say it’s not so much one of those books that’s still great as an adult. Then again, I’m sure some adults have liked it too *shrug*