Wake Up, Little Susie - The Everly Brothers

Once
Eve, Book 2

Author: Anna Carey
Narrator: Tavia Gilbert
Duration: 7 hrs, 9 mins
Publisher: Harper Audio
Publication Date: July 3, 2012
Source: HarperAudio

Description from Goodreads:
When you're being hunted, who can you trust?

For the first time since she escaped from her school many months ago, Eve can sleep soundly. She's living in Califia, a haven for women, protected from the terrifying fate that awaits orphaned girls in The New America.

But her safety came at a price: She was forced to abandon Caleb, the boy she loves, wounded and alone at the city gates. When Eve gets word that Caleb is in trouble, she sets out into the wild again to rescue him, only to be captured and brought to the City of Sand, the capital of The New America.

Trapped inside the City walls, Eve uncovers a shocking secret about her past--and is forced to confront the harsh reality of her future. When she discovers Caleb is alive, Eve attempts to flee her prison so they can be together--but the consequences could be deadly. She must make a desperate choice to save the ones she loves . . . or risk losing Caleb forever.

In this breathless sequel to "Eve," Anna Carey returns to her tale of romance, adventure, and sacrifice in a world that is both wonderfully strange and chillingly familiar.

Prior Book: Eve (Goodreads|my review)

Review:
Eve was a book that I was mostly meh about. I try to read all of the dystopias, or at least the first book in each series. Obviously, I liked it enough to want to continue with the series. I read Eve around the same time as I read Wither, which I thought was better. With the sequels, though, I think I like Carey's series better, at least for consistency's sake.

The basic society seen in Once is interesting enough. I am always horrified by dystopias about women being demoted in society again after some cataclysmic event. Let's be honest: I can imagine women being forced to breed if that's what the people in power thought was necessary. The divide in the society, between the wealthy and the poor also seems a fitting theme. Once added this by showing that as part of the whole rebuilding effort, the King is trying to rebuild a theme park, instead of trying to help the poor. Much as I love roller coasters, I'm going to have to go with bad plan.

I wish more had been done with Califia, but we really don't get much of a feel for this haven for women. Anyway, she's quickly captured and taken to the city, where she learns 'a shocking secret' as the description says. That certainly was surprise to me as a reader, but my reaction was mostly 'of course she is.'

The main thing that kept throwing me out of the story was the romance. I do not ship Caleb and Eve at all. Though I remember that they were not instalove, it sure reads like it. Eve is so freaking sappy and she thinks about him CONSTANTLY. Caleb this, Caleb that. I mean, at the beginning, her friend shows up bleeding and Eve wants to know what happened. The girl tells this terrifying story about what happened to her on the run. Eve listens and then responds with "CRY FOR ME BECAUSE I HAD TO SEPARATE FROM CALEB!" Girl, hold up for a moment, okay. What an awful friend. I would like them better as a couple if I didn't have to hear about how much she loves him all of the time. SHOW your love for him; don't just moan about it all the time.

Also, Caleb and Eve are so stupid together. She does all sorts of dumb stuff to see him. Their situation is made so much worse, because of how they behave. Admittedly, they have big problems, but if they weren't so rash about everything, they could have managed. For example, I chose this song because of this scene where she sneaks out to see him and THEY ACCIDENTALLY FALL ASLEEP for too long despite the fact that this will, of course, get them caught. When your life is on the line, you set an alarm. *headdesk*

The saving grace of the book was that Anna Carey is willing to make some of the tougher decisions. The ending definitely kept my attention and guaranteed that I'll be reading the next book.

Narration:
Tavia Gilbert's voice worked really well for the character of Eve. She has a voice that really sounds like it could belong to a teenager, especially a naive, innocent one like Eve. Gilbert did a fantastic job of conveying emotion with her voice and pacing.

However, her attempts at doing voices for the other characters were made of fail. She does a horrible impression of a man's voice. Seriously, I laughed every time. I could not take these supposedly-intimidating characters, like the King, seriously, because they sounded so absurd. Ditto Caleb's romantic lines. The audiobook would have been much stronger had she not tried to do voices.

Since I read Eve and listened to the audiobook, I wanted to compare which worked better for me. All things considered, I think it came out about the same. I think the audiobook made a nice change. I do love when people tell me a story.

"Wake up, little Susie, wake up
We’ve both been sound asleep, wake up, little Susie, and weep
The movie’s over, it’s four o’clock, and we’re in trouble deep"

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