Review: Rise by Anna Carey

Rise

Anna Carey

Series: Eve, #3
Release Date: April 2nd, 2013

Publisher: HarperTeen
Number of Pages: 320

Rating: 2 stars

How far will you go when you have nothing left to lose?

When she lost her soul mate, Caleb, Eve felt like her world had ended. Trapped in the palace, forced to play the part of the happy, patriotic princess of The New America—and the blushing bride of her father's top adviser—Eve's whole life is a lie. The only thing that keeps her going is Caleb's memory, and the revolution he started.

Now, Eve is taking over where Caleb left off. With the help of Moss, an undercover subversive in the King's court, she plots to take down The New America, beginning with the capital, the City of Sand. Will Eve be able to bring about a new, free world when she's called upon to perform the ultimate act of rebellion—killing her father?

In Rise, Eve must choose who to leave behind, who to save, and who to fight as Anna Carey's epic tale of romance and sacrifice in the chilling dystopia of The New America comes to a stunning conclusion.

This review is spoiler-free for both Rise and the entire Eve trilogy

Not including this final (unfortunately or fortunately, I've not yet decided) and ever so disappointing installment, I do love this trilogy, and will not forget the emotional impact Eve had on me when I read it months ago. The Eve trilogy was one I'd recommend at any opportune moment available, and I held back on none of my praise, despite the fact that the vast majority of my friends felt indifferent to the first two novels of the trilogy.

With that having been said, however, I anticipate that it will be difficult for me to recommend this trilogy any further, because, as much as the first two novels may hold a place in my heart, recommending this trilogy would also mean I'd have to recommend this unfortunate installment, which is something I can say right now I'll not be able to do.


As I'd mentioned already in this review, the number one thing I'll remember about my experience with Eve was the emotional impact it had on me, and how it had me crying just two pages into the novel. The next novel, Once, had significantly less of an emotional impact on me, but I found myself loving the novel nonetheless, due to how attached I was to the characters. And then of course there's Rise, of which the emotional impact was nonexistent, when it really should have been at its highest, and my attachment to the characters grew less and less to the point where I was hoping the main character would be executed at the end of the novel--a gutsy move, yes, but one I was able to imagine the author taking in the midst of all the other deaths occurring throughout the novel.

And, on the topic of both execution and the main character, I'm brought to part of my review where I rant about discuss the the manner in which the (many) death scenes were written, as well as the evolution of Eve, from being a character I at least liked and sympathized with for the entirety of the first two novels in this trilogy, to being a character whose motives and actions I couldn't bring myself to understand, nor did I want to. A character that was once likable and considerate--albeit unquestionably idiotic at times--in prior installments only evolved into a cold and unlikable character in this final, and most crucial installment, and I couldn't bring myself to care about what happened to Eve by the end of the novel.

And as for how the novel deals with the multiple death scenes, I am, among other things, not a fan. I've said it before in this review and I'll say it again--quite a few people die in this book. People whom I liked. People whose deaths would have made more of an impact if they'd been met with more development and weren't just side-characters left to inevitably be fed to the dogs. People whose deaths would have made more of an impact if their deaths hadn't been brushed upon within the span of a few pages, a chapter at most, and then left to be forgotten. We're not given enough time to mourn for the characters lost to us in Rise due to the fact that within a few pages the characters are moving on from the character's death and are heading towards their next mission/destination, and due to that very issue, each of the deaths in this novel lacked the emotional impact it could have surely had on readers of this trilogy had more time and emotion gone into the deaths of the characters.

However, despite the issues pointed out above, Rise, up until the last chapter, is not overwhelmingly bad by any particular set of means, but it is helplessly bland, forgettable, achingly disappointing, and its quality just isn't up to par with that of the two novels prior to it. The characters lost their flare that had me caring for them in Eve and Once, the writing and relationships lost that very same flare as well, and the final page ruined any chance of this trilogy being recommended from me in the future. I've said this before in this review, but it's worth a reiteration: I do love the first two books in this trilogy. But I do not love the trilogy as a whole. The first two novels were brilliant, but this conclusion was nothing short of an adversity.