Eve and Adam - new book by AppleGrant!

[BabelFish42]

In case you weren't aware, KA and Michael Grant recently published a new book called Eve and Adam. I was very excited about this just because, well, I will always be excited about anything getting published by those two.

The story, set in modern day San Francisco, revolves around a girl named Evening (a bit of a nerd who loves biology, art, and running, and is kinda picky when it comes to guys), her best friend Aislin (a wild, fun-loving, somewhat self-destructive but fiercely loyal girl who is not at all picky about guys), Evening's "psycho b****" mother who runs a high tech and not-overly-concerned-with-ethics biopharmaceutical company called Spiker, a mysterious guy named Solo who lives and works at Spiker, only pretending to be a clueless coffee boy so that people will underestimate him, and Adam - the perfect guy, designed by Evening herself. Of course, Adam's only a computer simulation. Right?

I'm about halfway through the book at the moment. So far, so good. Anybody else out there read(ing) it yet?

[BabelFish42]

Okay, so just finished the novel. Here’s what I thought:

Characters – Excellent; they’re complex, deeply flawed and endearing at the same time, and entirely believable. I liked them all, but surprisingly, I think my favorite may have been Aislin. My only complaint is that some of the baddies - particularly Tommy - were kind of one-dimensional; they didn't have any very convincing reasons for being villainous, they just were.

Plot – Decent, with a few good twists towards the end. Most of the time, felt like I could guess where the story was going, and for the most part, my guesses were right. But there were some nice surprises that I didn’t see coming, especially the revelations about Terra Spiker and Solo’s parents at the very end.

Entertainment Value – Good. Like most of AppleGrant’s stuff, this is a fast-paced story you could probably get through in one sitting, with plenty of jokes thrown in along the way. One thing I really enjoyed was all the, shall we say, adult humor in this book that was definitely not there in Animorphs series; it’s usually not explicit, but it’s there all right.

Thought-provoking-ness (because I’m feeling too lazy to think of a better word) – Great. This story has a healthy dose of all the moral ambiguity and ethical grey areas that I loved so much in Animorphs. AppleGrant’s knack for bringing up morally ambiguous questions, and forcing their characters to make decisions with no clear right or wrong answers, has always been one of my favorite things about them. They didn’t disappoint me in this novel.

Overall – not one of my favorite books of all time, but definitely worth a read. It’s no Animorphs (at least, I didn’t think so), but I doubt any fans of AppleGrant’s previous works will be disappointed.

And it just felt so good to be reading something by KA Applegate again. I miss that author.

[tfoss1983]

I've been wondering a bit what KAA might be doing these days (part of why I just registered here--woo, first post!), so it's good to hear that there's more reading to be had, especially something that sounds like it has some strong character work. I'll have to check it out--do you know if it's available from any of the big ebook retailers?

[BabelFish42]

Yay! I'm glad you're interested!

I have no idea. I found it at a local bookstore. Good luck!

Also, if you're looking for more AppleGrant, I highly recommend the Gone series. I guess technically that's not AppleGrant, since it's just Michael Grant who's writing it. But still. It is awesome.