Eve of Man
Giovanna & Tom Fletcher
Fifty years ago, baby girls stopped being born – making women an endangered species. Eve is a biological anomaly who was born during the drought. At age 16, it’s time for her to start reproducing. Her holo-friend Holly is there to keep her company, just as she has for their lives – but the boy behind it is starting to fall for Eve. As the EPO’s lies fall apart, will Eve and Bram ever be able to be together?
Eve is a naive girl who you want to like as a protagonist. But without more from her it is impossible to do so. I get that it is difficult to get inside her head – that’s why the EPO has Holly after all. But that’s why there are split perspective chapters! I much preferred Bram as the alternative protagonist. Good work Bram on having an actual personality, but you couldn’t carry the novel by yourself when there were other fatal flaws.
It felt like a hard slog to get into the characters, and I didn’t find the premise of the novel particularly promising. It is almost impossible to restart a population from a single individual – even if they are bred every year. Just ask any conservationist of endangered animals! Yet Eve is expected to repopulate an Earth that isn’t even worth saving.
I did finish this novel, but again, just like Zero Repeat Forever, I wish I hadn’t wasted my time. I was a chapter out from the end when my partner pointed out that this was the first novel in a trilogy. I immediately stopped reading in disgust – honestly I would have been happy if the ‘happy ending’ was both of them dying!
I did finish this, so I have to give it 2 stars, but honestly don’t waste your time. I’m not sure who this would appeal to because the science behind it is so unreasonable that I can’t recommend it. Try The Ego Cluster and Sapient instead.
Penguin Random House | 28th May 2018 | AU$22.99 | paperback
Bobby’s devotion to his mother is admirable, is is his devotion to his rather difficult little brother. However, a child should never be put into this position. I can’t believe that the professional carer for his mother is such a numskull. Or actually I can. Health professionals that aren’t nurses aren’t always as well trained as they could be.
I really wish I hadn’t wasted my time on this novel. I started reading it once and then put it down. I was feeling like a fantasy novel so I picked it up again right from the beginning. More fool me. The action is surprisingly slow, and the main character Raven isn’t inherently likable. I liked Eighth, but his mind was so fragmented that I could barely follow along what it meant to be a Nahx.
This was an average novel with a meandering storyline that had me losing interest about half way through (and thus pausing to write this review). BB was a lovable, cuddly protagonist and it was certainly comforting to read a fat-positive novel for once. However, she IS unhealthily fat and I’m not sure I can give completely positive feedback to a novel that initially promotes it.
Allen & Unwin | 23rd May 2018 | AU$19.99 | paperback
I hated the objectification of women in this novel, and the completely inappropriate language all of the boys used. The lovely Muslim girl goes to a party and gets hit on and followed home by people she’s turned down. I’m perfectly fine with her smoking pot, but where are her friends to help her out when she gets in trouble? The amount of drink and drugs going around was crazy. I’d love to know where this town is, and I wonder whether its real occupants actually behave in this deplorable way. Actually, this novel reminds me of Dream-something or other that was about another isolated idiot. I grew up isolated and so did my fiancee – and neither of us had these problems (she’s a first in family to College too).
I couldn’t get behind this novel. I attempted to read it twice and at least got in about a quarter of the way before giving up this time. While the opening chapter puts you a bit on the edge of your seat, you know that he survives it because he writes the rest of the novel! It goes downhilll from there as Simon’s narration becomes increasingly erratic and we are introduced to more and more characters. I got sick of the frequent, gratuitous swearing that did nothing to endear me to Simon.
It had the potential to be a thriller, but thanks to 
I’d like to know, even with Wanda’s magic, why Verity is up and about after such a traumatic birth pretty much 2 days later. Any baby that comes out in the space of an hour is going to rip some serious damage. Or maybe the time passed faster than I thought, which it might have because I had no sense of timing throughout the whole novel.
Ugh, I spent this novel reading it in a sort of daze of disbelief. To start with, I didn’t really connect with the main character, and the style of writing just didn’t take me into the novel. And then, funnily enough, the protagonist talks about reading a book with no discernable plot-line. This one was just the same!