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Eve: A Novel of the First Woman |  | Author: Elissa Elliott
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Category: Book
List Price: $24.00
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as of 7/30/2010 15:54 CDT details
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Seller: _beaglebooks_
Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 653947
Media: Hardcover
Edition: First Edition
Pages: 432
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.5
ISBN: 038534144X
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780385341448
ASIN: 038534144X
Publication Date: January 27, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
It is the world’s oldest tale: the story of Eve, her husband, Adam, and the tragedy that would overcome her sons…. In this luminous debut novel, Elissa Elliott puts a powerful twist on biblical narrative, boldly reimagining Eve’s journey. At once intimate and universal, timely and timeless, this unique work of fiction blends biblical tradition with recorded history and dazzling storytelling. And as it does, Eve comes to life in a way religion and myth have never allowed—in a novel that explores the very essence of love, motherhood, faith, and humanity.
In their world they are alone…a family haunted by banishment, struggling for survival in a harsh new land. A woman who has borne and buried children, Eve sees danger shadowing those she loves, while her husband drifts further and further from the man he was in the Garden, blinded by his need to rebuild a life outside of Eden. One daughter, alluring, self-absorbed Naava, turns away from their beliefs. Another, crippled, ever-faithful Aya, harbors a fateful secret, while brothers Cain and Abel become adversaries, and Dara, the youngest, is chosen for a fate of her own.
In one hot, violent summer, by the shores of the muddy Euphrates, strangers arrive on their land. New gods challenge their own. And for Eve, a time of reckoning is at hand. The woman who once tasted the forbidden fruit of paradise sees her family unraveling—as brother turns on brother, culminating in a confrontation that will have far-reaching consequences for them all.
From a woman’s first awakening to a mother’s innermost hopes and fears, from moments of exquisite tenderness to a climax of shocking violence, Eve takes us on a breathtaking journey of the imagination. A novel that has it all—romantic love, lust, cruelty, heroism, envy, sacrifice, murder—Eve is a work of mesmerizing literary invention by a singular new voice in fiction.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 23
 Good premise, mediocre writing March 23, 2010
Julie Merilatt (Chicago, IL)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Biblical fiction can be beautifully executed (The Red Tent), but Eve failed in its delivery of a story that could have been transcendent. The premise was good, but the writing was lacking. To start, there were too many different perspectives that weren't cohesive. Eve and her daughters Dara and Aya narrated in the first person, and daughter Naava's narrative was in the third person. Eve's account was regretful and reminiscent to a degree that became annoying. The chapters told by five-year-old Dara seemed to be trying too hard to sound childish. Naaya's conceit overwhelmed her scenes. Aya was the only sympathetic and reliable narrator in this story. Often, I found Elliott's attempt to be poetic hindered her writing. Eve's recollections of her and Adam's time in the garden, their relationship with Elohim, and their expulsion were effectively told, but fraught with remorse.
I found it interesting that Elliott uses the First Family's exposure to civilization as the driving force behind the story. Their encounter with other humans, their gods, and their advanced knowledge forces them from their isolation and each member of the family responds in different ways. Abel's curiosity is superseded by his devotion to Elohim. Adam is passive, while Cain is quick to adopt the new language, customs and deities. The worlds of Adam and Eve and their neighbors were too incongruent to ever coexist and these differences intensify the conflict between Cain and Abel. Alas, we all know the conclusion of the animosity between the brothers. Therefore, the ending was predictable and delivered without any remarkable revelation.
 Eve is Fascinating! March 6, 2010
Susan B. Evans (Rosenberg, TX USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Eve is a beautifully written re-imagining of one of mankind's oldest stories. Elliott's writing is exquisitely lyrical, weaving a fascinating story from the multiple points-of-view of Eve and her daughters. I picked up Eve at my library and read it completely for enjoyment, not as someone who has studied the Bible in-depth. Personally, I found it to be an incredibly compelling piece of historical fiction.
Elissa Elliott's writing is delicious! Her prose is expressive and graceful - this is a woman who knows how to turn a phrase. When I read a book, I mark memorable and particularly captivating passages so that I can share them with others. By page 60 of Eve, I had marked so many passages that I ran out of post-its! The writing is magnificent, evoking the true spirit of Biblical times for the reader.
The characters in Elissa Elliott's Eve - especially Eve's daughters: the eldest, Naava, the beautiful but self-absorbed weaver; Aya, the intelligent, club-footed cook and healer; and Dara, the kind-hearted, perceptive twin - are richly drawn and leap off the pages, brilliantly alive in the reader's mind.
The story of Adam and Eve is well-researched and vividly recounted in Elissa Elliott's Eve: A Novel of the First Woman. I would definitely recommend this novel to lovers of historical fiction, and to anyone who enjoys an engaging and delightfully well-written story.
enjoyable biblical biographical fiction December 31, 2009
Harriet Klausner
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Eve and Adam love their life in the Garden of Eden. However, paradise is lost when Eve seduced by Lucifer as much as by her curiosity persuades Adam to take an apple bite from the Tree of Knowledge forbidden fruit. Saddened but a believer in the original tough love, Elohim kicks the pair from the Garden and into the harsh cruel world.
Over the next few years, the previously pampered pair struggle, but finally turn it around as their home becomes a safe haven to raise kids and drink beer with figs and grapes. They have several children as Adam believes in barefoot and pregnant. Abel is a sheepherder; Cain becomes a farmer, Seth the favorite provides solace to his mom; Naava is a weaver; Dara is a potter; and Aya the healer remains invisible to her family. Cain turns away from Elohim to the Sumerian fertility goddess Inanna while his sister Naava seduces him into taking her to the nearby city. Naava is jealous that Dara works for the prince, so she marries the prince. Outraged by her betrayal Cain causes a riot that displaces the first family and soon commits fratricide.
This dysfunctional family drama makes for an enjoyable biblical biographical fiction in which they needed a shrink. The story line leaps around as perspective is rotated. Eve grows in her job as the first mom after being kicked to the curb by God due to the original sin. Her daughters even "invisible" Aya come across as fully developed in part because they tell the saga while the males are not fleshed out beyond their roles of supporting the women who dominate their lives. Although except for the setting, the First family feels like an American brood sent back to the first days, fans will enjoy the novelization of Eve and her clan.
Harriet Klausner
Eve & The Daughters We Never Knew December 12, 2009
Wendall Paul Sexton (Kansas)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
"An author's perspective on tales from the Bible is always intriguing to explore. Can their thoughts shed any new light upon the events those days? With this story of Eve, told from the voices of Eve and her three daughters, I think the answer is yes. Elissa Eliot offers a plausible scenario of Adam and Eve establishing a life for themselves away from the Garden, which involves encountering a `city' of people with gods different than their one God, while working to sustain their growing family without it splintering apart. Not all her conclusions do I agree with, but when one steps back to consider the dilemma faced in not only being the first man and woman, but also the first parents, absent any model in how to raise a family, one can easily detect the problems these two must have faced."
Eve isn't as interesting as other characters... September 8, 2009
Lauren Goecks (Wisconsin)
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
I am not a religious person but I do enjoy books which fictionalize religious history to lend a more human aspect to dusty, ancient text. I had hoped this book would rival Anita Diamant's 'The Red Tent,' however, it did not. I enjoyed the book enough to finish it but I noticed Eve's chapters became increasingly dry and filled with almost nothing happening besides Eve's incessant wish to go back to the Garden. I found Naava the most intriguing character and wished the book had been about her; actually, I enjoyed Adam and Eve's children much more than the first man and woman.
I liked the novel; it was an easy enough read, but I wouldn't re-read it.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 23
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