Review: Eve and Adam by Katherine Applegate and Michael Grant

Eve and Adam by Katherine Applegate, Michael Grant
Published by: Feiwel & Friends on October 2, 2012
Genre: Romance, Science Fiction
Pages: 304
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Rating: ★★★★★

In the beginning, there was an apple. And then there was a car crash, a horrible, debilitating injury, and the hospital. But before Evening Spiker could even lift her head out of the fog of unconsciousness, there was a strange boy checking her out of the hospital and rushing her to Spiker Biopharmaceuticals—her mother's research facility. Just when Eve thinks she will die—not from her injuries, but from boredom—her mother gives her a special project: Create the perfect boy.

Using an amazingly detailed simulation that her mother claims is designed to teach human genetics, Eve starts building a boy from the ground up: eyes, hair, muscles, even a brain, and potential personality traits. Eve is creating Adam. And he will be just perfect . . . won't he?

Me, pre-reading: “Please be good, please be good, please be good!” Seriously. I said that out loud to myself. This was one of my most anticipated fall 2012 novels.

This book has so much personality. Every word that comes off the page is some kind of hilarious wit, humour, or sarcasm, and I absolutely loved it! It was so entertaining, and so not what I expected from a dystopian sci-fi novel. Those are usually epic, but pretty serious. This book was so playful! All the characters were hilarious in their own way. Evening and Solo were pretty similar — both hilariously snarky and independent. Evening’s best friend, Aislin, was a hilarious teenager with absolutely no censor! She’s more of a bad girl — into sex and alcohol — but she’s a fiercely loyal friend and a great character. And Evening’s mom Terra Spiker, a.k.a. Ice Queen Bitch or “Terror Spiker,” is funny in her own bitchy, scary rich CEO woman way.

In many ways, this book read more like a contemporary novel than a sci-fi dystopian. I think it was because of the very playful nature of the dialogue. I felt like I was just reading about a funny, rich teenager’s life while she embarked on a high-tech science project. I estimate that this book takes place maybe 10 years in the future. We’re never given an exact date but it’s far enough in the future that USBs are becoming obsolete, but not so far that the world is unrecognizable. Society, the government, and culture all seem nearly exactly the same.

Although I wasn’t expecting a realistic sci-fi that felt like a contemporary, I still enjoyed the book immensely. It was very entertaining, playful, and was a very quick read. Although perhaps you could say it was almost too quick. This isn’t the most detailed of books and it touches on a lot of different things, without going into extreme detail. That made it easy to read, but perhaps lacking if you’re a stickler for detail and world-building.

What’s cool about this book is that it dips a lot into stereotypes and morals. As Evening is creating the perfect man—her Adam—she has to decide every single detail. And of course she ends up creating a stereotypically handsome, perfectly muscled man. It’s just kind of interesting to watch her thought process and see her decide which features to add or exclude. Once the action picks up in the novel, we get a lot of hints and messages about morals, and it really tied into our society today. In the news today, we hear about all these things like cloning and genetic modification, and this book talks a lot about the morality of that. Can you go too far with science? That’s what made the book feel really real to me. Eve and Adam introduces science that I could imagine becoming real some day (or maybe less extreme versions).

Eve and Adam was extremely enjoyable, and fast-paced, and once again, it had the best personality EVER! Every single character was amazing in a different way and I was laughing all the time. They’re so hilarious and that’s really what made this a five star book for me. The story and science fiction elements were interesting, but they definitely took the backseat; the colourful dialogue is what really stood out.

I almost feel like I’m not sure what will happen in the next book (titled Adam and Eve) since there wasn’t a cliffhanger, but I can’t wait to find out!

I literally felt like I wanted to quote every other page of this book because there were so many lines that cracked me up! Here are a few:

I sit with my elbows on my knees, trying to hunch my shoulders forward a little. I have good shoulders, might as well reveal them. I know she’s checking me out. Fair enough, because I’m checking her out.
“Ah ahhh ahhhh!”
Eve cries out suddenly. She’s in pain. Bad pain. So it’s possible she’s not really checking me out.

ARC of Eve and Adam, Page 12

Things I Think About, Exhibit A:
How I got a B+ on my oral report in bio […]. I’m pretty sure Ms. Montoya dropped my grade because of my intro: “Boys have nipples.” Perhaps this was news to her.
It was a risky ploy, sure, but when it’s second period and you’re the first speaker and the Red Bull has only ignited a handful of brain cells, you do what you have to do.
There were twenty kids in the room. When I moved to the front to tie my iPad to the projector, I’d say I had a total of eight eyeballs out of a possible forty watching me.
I delivered my opening line, and thirty-nine eyeballs were trained on me. Jennifer has one lazy eye, so I was never going to get all forty.

ARC of Eve and Adam, Pages 16-17

Gently she begins to cut away the tape and gauze and pressure mesh. It doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t make me happy, either.
“Oh my god!” she says.
She has laid the flesh bare and her first thought is to call up a deity.

ARC of Eve and Adam, Page 32

The Verdict