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A review by christajls
Escape from Eden by Elisa Nader
4.0
This review originally posted at More Than Just Magic
I have this weird thing for cults. I find their very existence fascinating. I read everything I can find on them, I majored in religion in university and I wrote my fourth year seminar paper on the Solar Temple movement. So when I heard about Escape from Eden – one of the only YA novels that takes you inside a cult – I knew I had to read it.
Escape from Eden is an incredibly suspenseful read. The stakes are high for Mia and Gabriel. All they want is their freedom – freedom to make their own choices and their own mistakes – and to get out from underneath Eden’s power hungry leaders. There was no telling how far they would go to assert their control. I was on the edge of my seating waiting to see if Mia and Gabriel would make it through to the otherside.
I also appreciated that the different reasons some might join a cult were explored. The other members weren’t reduced to mindless sheep. People come to cults for a variety of different reasons but none of them are simple. Extremely plausible and realistic reasons are given for why people came to Eden. All of Nader’s characters are complex and interesting, even ones that only appear in a scene or two.
When I first found out there was going to be romance in this story I was sceptical. But it actually worked quite well. Mia and Gabriel are very similar – in that they are both extremely stubborn and they go for what they want. This leads to them butting heads more than a few times, but it also allows them to work well together because they think alike. I also enjoyed that neither of them adjusted their own personality for the other. As a result this ended up being a more realistic relationship than all of the insta-love scenarios in other YA books.
Escape from Eden is a suspenseful, action packed and most of all realistic book. I’ve read so many dystopias and science fiction novels lately which I’ve enjoyed but haven’t found believable. Escape from Eden is a novel which draws from real events and reminds us that our present world is often scarier than the ones we imagine.
I have this weird thing for cults. I find their very existence fascinating. I read everything I can find on them, I majored in religion in university and I wrote my fourth year seminar paper on the Solar Temple movement. So when I heard about Escape from Eden – one of the only YA novels that takes you inside a cult – I knew I had to read it.
Escape from Eden is an incredibly suspenseful read. The stakes are high for Mia and Gabriel. All they want is their freedom – freedom to make their own choices and their own mistakes – and to get out from underneath Eden’s power hungry leaders. There was no telling how far they would go to assert their control. I was on the edge of my seating waiting to see if Mia and Gabriel would make it through to the otherside.
I also appreciated that the different reasons some might join a cult were explored. The other members weren’t reduced to mindless sheep. People come to cults for a variety of different reasons but none of them are simple. Extremely plausible and realistic reasons are given for why people came to Eden. All of Nader’s characters are complex and interesting, even ones that only appear in a scene or two.
When I first found out there was going to be romance in this story I was sceptical. But it actually worked quite well. Mia and Gabriel are very similar – in that they are both extremely stubborn and they go for what they want. This leads to them butting heads more than a few times, but it also allows them to work well together because they think alike. I also enjoyed that neither of them adjusted their own personality for the other. As a result this ended up being a more realistic relationship than all of the insta-love scenarios in other YA books.
Escape from Eden is a suspenseful, action packed and most of all realistic book. I’ve read so many dystopias and science fiction novels lately which I’ve enjoyed but haven’t found believable. Escape from Eden is a novel which draws from real events and reminds us that our present world is often scarier than the ones we imagine.