Eve by Anna Carey

Eve is finishing up the final days of her last year at the School before going off to learn a trade and become a useful member of society in the City of Sand. But then she gets a dark warning from one of the other students, and witnesses horrible things happening to former graduates. This changes the course of Eve's life, as she manages to escape the School and her terrible fate. However, living outside the walls of her confined world is not going to be easy. She's heard the stories about wild beasts, boys, and untamed humans that will kill her without a moments hesitation. With the King hot on her heels, Eve will only have herself and the help of a couple kindred outlaws to survive.

The story of Eve is by now a rather familiar one: being on the cusp of adulthood, living in a sheltered bubble, and then finding out everything she has been taught her entire life is wrong. But despite the many similarities between this and other recent YA post-apocalyptic stories, I still enjoyed it a great deal. I think there will always be something attractive about the idea of escaping your doomed fate. Eve's character is almost painfully naive and innocent in the beginning, but when she is out on her own, she grows up so fast that by the time I had caught up with the changes, I was pleased to see she had become wiser to the world around her. The secondary characters of Arden and Caleb were strong as well, which I totally appreciated. If it weren't for Arden having such a hard head and soft heart, I might not have liked Eve as much as I did. There are a bunch of twists throughout the book too, that keep it moving at a fast pace. And though none of these twists come at much of a surprise, the story was entertaining and worth the read.

Overall Rating: 4 Stars