Reviews with content warning for Rape - A Casa de Eva

From the Author’s Note:
“I wrote this book for women like Georgia Mae, my grandmother Yvonne Clair, my great-grandmother Addie Murray and every woman who was forced to surrender her child either because of race, age, sexual abuse, shame or coer-cion. You are not alone. The House of Eve is for you.”

I picked this book up because it was an in person book club pick. I knew little about it going in, and honestly I did not expect to love it so much!

Positives:

Engaging writing
Dual perspective, with dual audio narration!
Based on experiences from real women
An emotional read with some gut wrenching parts
I was hooked early on and I wanted to keep turning the pages to see how it would all turn out for Ruby and Eleanor

Negatives:

that it took until the ending to make it a five star read (but at least it got there!) The author's note and the epilogue actually sealed the deal for me.

Topics/Themes:

Motherhood
Black History
Pregnancy
Racism
Classism

I'd Recommend To:

Book Clubs
Historical fiction readers, especially those interest in Black and/or women's history
Audiobook listeners (the narration is fantastic!)

Quotes:
"I hope the man she [Georgia Mae] worked for wouldn't touch her again, but I also knew that hope had never gotten any of us very far. " p.324

Content Warnings

zthebibliophile's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

erickaonpaper's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

a near perfect historical fiction.

Content Warnings

chailady's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I loved Yellow Wife by this author, but this one felt flat. The best part was the author’s notes and acknowledgements. It is there the reader really understands the author’s purpose. I love the character of Ruby; she was real. Eleanor felt more forced and flat. And William and his mother were so annoying.
The story is good, the characters were so-so, but the ending was surprisingly good.
Also, this book had similar feels to The Home for Unwanted Girls, by Joanna Goodman, When I First Held You, by Anstey Harris, and Take My Hand, by Dolen Perkins-Valdez. All four books use dual timelines/characters to convey their very similar themes: forced institutionalism, adoption, poverty, sexism, unwed mothers, etc. if you liked The House of Eve, I recommend reading the others.

Content Warnings

njhokie14's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

I found this book to be very slow and I almost abandoned it more than halfway through. The very end surprised me and got the rating up by a star or so.

Content Warnings

micalyia's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I ate this book tf up. It was so interesting to me. I was hooked from start to finish, I wanted to know how Eleanor and Ruby would affect each other so badly and the twists and turn along the way kept me on the edge of my seat.

I didn’t read the blurb so I really had no clue what to expect which I think helped in the intrigue of the story.

I loved that we saw background on the characters as this helped them to feel whole. I was able to truly empathize and understand their decisions (even if I didn’t agree with them).

I would 100% recommend that you read the authors note cause when you do you’re going to want to cry for all the women this novel was inspired by.

This book could be highly triggering for some though, so check those out.

Content Warnings

ictreads's review against another edition

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challenging emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

mermaidreads's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This book made me feel anger for the black women and how they were treated during this time. 1950 not even 100 years ago.

The story ended how I expected, but the emotions of Elenor engulfed me and the rage toward William and his mother made me wishing she would escape it all with Bernie instead. I suppose her one sided view biased me as William was just hurt and human. I’m glad Rose came around, but it damn took long enough. Ruby’s story was traumatic and sad, I’m glad her dream to go to college and be an optometrist worked out, but at such great expense it was unfair. I hated shimmy’s mom and that house was horrific. I had no idea those were real places.

Overall a great book, with a hard look into the racist past of our country. Racism that is unfortunately still very present.

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