Atom & Eve by Jeff Yager

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


This book has landed on my "abandoned" shelf. I just could not continue reading it. Here are some of the issues I found objectionable:
1. Yes, young adult literature is hotter than ever and I can understand an author writing for this audience. However, YA readers are not stupid and do not deserve to be talked down to as this author does from the beginning.
2. The conversations are totally inane. Here is the senior research scientist alerting her team to a discovery which may get them over a temporary hurdle: "Hey, guys, I think I might have figured it out....well, I was dreaming and in the dream I was messing around with the main substance in B317 and a few other molecular compounds." This sounds a bit more like a 15 year-old boy who found a solution to a skateboarding problem.
3. The characters are inconsistent and unbelievable. The research scientists and news reporters talk about the fact that a cure has yet to be found for this flu that is "going around". There never has been a cure for the flu or for a cold. Flu shots prevent or reduce the severity of the symptoms, they do not cure. The doctor caring for our main character asks him to stay in the hospital to help them discover a cure, and then releases him from the hospital 3 days later. And, the news is full of this "mysterious new flu" that is spreading quickly, yet the hospital releases the patient who still has the flu, allows him to travel from Baltimore to Illinois and says he should be okay if he wears a mask. What?? No quarantine? Travel that would put him in the position of being able to spread the flu? A couple of hours after arriving home, Ricky asks his mother to take him to the mall, and she is fine with that as long as he wears a mask. He still has the flu and was in a coma for 3 days and she says it is fine for him to head to the mall within minutes of arriving home.
4. Then it gets even crazier. Ricky is a freshman in college, but he "skipped" his last two years of high school. That would make him about 16, right? The minute he arrives home to Illinois, he fills out an online dating questionnaire and finds someone immediately and arranges to meet her two hours after he has arrived home. She has placed an old photo of herself in her profile, and is now 10 years older and 100 pounds heavier than she had claimed. So, Ricky lies to her that he is "Ricky's twin" and that Ricky had just committed suicide and sent his twin to give her his regrets. There is so much wrong with this situation I cannot begin to spell it out.
5. We have a woman running for president of the US who makes statements like "It's not fair that we women have to feel like we're inferior to our loved ones, our male friends, and especially our bosses..." I would think most people stop using a phrase like "it's not fair" at about age 12. Who would take a person seriously as a presidential candidate who seeks to run based on her ability to alienate the male population of the country?

Then we can talk about grammar, run on sentences, the overuse of the word that, and many other basic writing concerns.

I understand that this story then goes on to describe the "cure" for the flue has been tainted by our research scientist and it causes men to become women and women to become men. Interesting idea, but I just couldn't get that far...

I cannot recommend this book to anyone.

I received an advance reader copy from Edelweiss.



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