Review: Eve and Adam

Eve and Adam
Katherine Applegate & Michael Grant
Series: Unknown
Release Date: October 2nd, 2012
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends
Number of Pages: 304 
Source: NetGalley
Rating: 2 of 5 stars

Sixteen-year-old Evening Spiker lives an affluent life in San Francisco with her mother, EmmaRose, a successful geneticist and owner of Spiker Biotech. Sure, Evening misses her father who died mysteriously, but she’s never really questioned it. Much like how she’s never stopped to think how off it is that she’s never been sick. That is, until she’s struck by a car and is exposed to extensive injuries. Injuries that seem to be healing faster than physically possible.

While recuperating in Spiker Biotech’s lush facilities, she meets Solo Plissken, a very attractive, if off-putting boy her age who spent his life at Spiker Biotech. Like Evening, he’s never questioned anything... until now. Solo drops hints to Evening that something isn’t right, and Emma-Rose may be behind it. Evening puts this out of her mind and begins her summer internship project: To simulate the creation of the perfect boy. With the help of Solo, Evening uncovers secrets so big they could change the world completely.

I'm trying so desperately to find something even slightly redeemable about husband-and-wife team Katherine Applegate and Michael Grant's return to young adult, Eve and Adam, but, as I was trying to think up some positive qualities that this book holds, I only ended up with the pathetic, "Well, it was a quick read...", and the equally as pathetic, "I guess it was original..." Clearly those two accolades - the only ones I can provide at the time, mind you - aren't the most enthusiastic, but this book wasn't mind-numbingly horrible. I just expected so much more from it, putting into consideration that the Animorphs series was my first foray into young adult as a teenager, and I really did love it. Unfortunately, my expectations got the best of me, and I ended up being utterly disappointed by Eve and Adam, but even if I didn't have such high expectations prior to reading this, I just doubt that I'd had have a different opinion of this book.

In a present day San Francisco, Evening Spiker, sole daughter of the incredibly wealthy and powerful businesswoman and geneticist Terra Spiker, is suddenly in a car accident in which she loses a leg, and severely injures an arm. Immediately rushed to the hospital, Evening is taken care of in no time, and she is healing at the same rate. As she is going through the quick healing process, Evening befriends a boy named Solo, who knows more about Evening, and Spiker Biotech, than he's willing to admit. As well as the mysterious Solo, Evening's mother, in order to keep her occupied during her recovery, gives Evening the task of creating the perfect boy. However, as this perfect boy, eventually named Adam, is brought to life, we have to suffer through three identical narratives secrets unknown to Evening are unraveled.

The premise for Eve and Adam is incredibly intriguing, and it's also very original. The book itself, however, is not. What could have been an extremely entertaining book - one that makes you stop and say, "Wow. This book had a lot of thought put into it." - only ended up being bogged down by horrendous little tropes we see too often in young adult. Love triangle? Check. Insta-love? Check. Stereotypical promiscuous best friend in which the main character lives her sexual life through? Check. The love interests saying their 'I love you''s after having a few conversations? Check. With all of those tropes, and quite a few more, making their appearances in Eve and Adam, this book turns in to a book with a whole lot of promise, but that promise is only thrown in the garbage to make way for romance. Yet another young adult trope to add to Eve and Adam's lengthy list.


From the start, we're introduced to Evening Spiker, or as she is more commonly referenced in the book, Eve. What can I say about Eve... Well, she is... a character... Yeah. She's a character. Congratulations, Eve; that's all I can muster up about you. As well as Eve, we're introduced to Solo, who, when combined with Eve, has about as much character development as a wooden plank. Maybe the wooden plank has a little more character development. Going in to this book, I was not aware that there would be multiple narratives, and, had I known, I probably would have steered clear of this book and run far, far away. Few authors are actually able to pull off multiple narratives, and I hate to say that Applegate and Grant certainly aren't one of those few authors. But, to add to that fact that both Eve and Solo's narratives were practically interchangeable, Applegate and Grant had to add a third narrative - one that is equally as interchangeable as the other two. Note to authors: when it comes to multiple narratives? Just ... don't...

To add to the tropes that ruined a could-be good story, and the three identical narratives, it really doesn't help that the writing is painfully amateur, and that there are some extremely unnecessary subplots, that, in my opinion, were only really added to make the book longer (come on, was the Aislin and Maddox sublot really necessary? Really?).

Ultimately, Eve and Adam is a disappointment in every sense of the word, and is only really getting two stars from me because it had its few, yet funny, one-liners, and it was a quick read, and never actually painful to get through, like that of many books I've given one star this year. Don't take that as praise, though, because that's really the most amount of positives I can muster when it comes to this book. The author himself (Michael Grant) said in a comment, "This is Katherine and me having fun, not trying to be heavy or deep.", and while I think it's great that they had fun writing this, I don't think it's great that I did not have much fun reading this. And, to conclude Grant's comment, and my review, this is what was said, "EVE AND ADAM is just light, sexy, silly fun." My thoughts on that?

Light? Yeah, I guess.

Sexy?



Silly? Yes, but perhaps overly so.

Fun? Not so much.