I Can Make You a Man - Rocky Horror Picture Show

Eve & Adam
Eve & Adam, Book 1

Author: Michael Grant & Katherine Applegate
Pages: 291
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Publication Date: October 2, 2012
Source: Macmillan at BEA

Description from Goodreads:
Sixteen-year-old Evening Spiker lives an affluent life in San Francisco with her mother, Terra, 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.

First Sentence: "I am thinking of an apple when the streetcar hits and my leg severs and my ribs crumble and my arm is no longer an arm but something unrecognizable, wet and red."

Review:
Initially, I really wasn't all that interested in this book. I sort of thought it was middle grade or children's from the cover, and, despite my childhood obsession with The Animorphs, the authors weren't big draws. I picked it up at BEA, because when I got my ticket for Crewel they gave me one for this as well and I thought why not. I'm glad I did pick it up, because I was definitely pleasantly surprised by this one.

First off, I have to say that this really isn't a dystopia. I mean, I guess you could call it a dystopia in microcosm sort of, since Evening does learn that her world is not what she thought it was, and that new knowledge is mostly negative. Still, society is no more dystopian than our current society so far as I can tell. I could remove this review from Dystopian August, but I prefer to read it and tell you that those souls on Goodreads that marked it thus were misguided.

Please do not judge this book from the description up there. It makes Evening (aka E.V. or Eve) sound like such an airhead. She's really not at all. In fact, she's a big part of why I thought this book was so much fun. Though I didn't bond with her character immediately (probably due to the fact that she was on heavy painkillers and not herself for the first several chapters), I soon found her to have a personality much like my own, so basically she's the best.

At the beginning of the book, she's in a crazy accident (see first sentence), then hijacked by her billionaire mother to be taken for private care at Striker (the family company). Solo works for her mom and, as the only person her age, becomes a sort of not-unwilling companion. Terra assigns her daughter a project to give Eve something to do, since she was going completely stir crazy: use new software to design the perfect man (in the virtual world of course), much like Dr. Frankenfurter did.

As you can no doubt guess from that, the plot really doesn't go anywhere particularly unique. I knew what the main plot arc was going to do as soon as I knew what the book was about. However, the story doesn't suffer too much from that. Grant and Applegate's writing primarily amused me (although some of the joke's did seem to try a bit too hard). I also liked that this most certainly didn't feel middle grade, what with all the sex jokes.

Eve & Adam is told from three perspectives: Eve's, Solo's and Adam's. Grant and Applegate, husband and wife team, pulled off multiple POV admirably. Each character felt clearly unique; I had no issues telling whose chapter I was in. Though Eve's sections were my favorites, I didn't mind the chapters told by the boys.

What made this book stand out more than the average book were the relationships between the characters. Obviously, I loved Eve, as already detailed, but I also really liked her relationship with her best friend Aislin. So many YA best friends are awful or boring. Aislin is seriously flawed, but she obviously has Eve's best interests at heart and vice versa. Their friendship really rang true, especially since it kind of reminded me of me and one of my friends, though she doesn't have a drug-running boyfriend, thank goodness. The romance in this was great, too. A lot of times, romance constitutes a weak point, but I thought it was very hilarious and well done here. The ending scene definitely made me clap in approval. Just saying.

If you're looking for a fun science fiction read with action and snark, Eve & Adam will do you right, and will not overwhelm you with Biblical references. Now I only wish I had time to break out my old Animorphs books...

Favorite Quote:

"It's not that I think I'm some kind of prize.
   No, wait, that's not true. I do think I'm some kind of prize. I'm smart and occasionally funny and I'm pretty. I don't see why I should have to spend long dates with some guy who expresses himself in single syllables and wants to go to slasher movies.
   Which does not answer my question: male or female?  
   I also don't understand why I should let some guy fondle me when I know the relationship has no future. I don't need to be groped that badly.
   So I've been on exactly three dates. The first when I was fourteen. The most recent two years ago.
   A guy tried to kiss me once. I didn't let him.
   I lived that part of my life vicariously through Aislin.
   I hear her stories. And I admit I'm fascinated most of the time. Sometimes kind of appalled. And then fascinated again.
   Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be her. To be that . . . experimental. To be that 'what the hell?'. To actually have detailed, well-informed opinions on questions having to do with kissing. Or whatever."

"In just seven days, I can make you a man"