"Daughter of Eden: Eve's Story" is the latest release by well-known and acclaimed Biblical Fiction author, Jill Eileen Smith. The novel seeks to tell the story of Eve through her own eyes, through her experiences with creation, the garden, the Fall, and her long-life span on the earth. It strives to peel back the veil on what Eve experienced with temptation, becoming a mother, grandmother, and still wanting to walk with God while dealing with the weight of the choice she made to sin.
The premise of the book is a wonderful one. However, the book veers greatly in focus in the telling of the story. Sometimes it shifts to Adam, Cain, Seth, Enoch, and various other characters' perspectives. As such, the narration and narrative become a bit disjointed. This is where the title does the book a great disservice. Had the title been more encompassing, then these segways to other voices would have been natural and expected. However, since this book is titled, "Eve's Story" the reader anticipates a more linear narrative from predominately the main character's point of view.
My second bone of contention is with the depiction of Adam post-Fall. Adam is sullen, prone to angry outbursts, and sex craved. It is literally a modern stereotypical characterization of man. Across the man's nine-hundred-year lifespan, he does not change. He doesn't even tell Eve he loves her until about year eight hundred. I expected a far more nuanced version of him considering he once was the perfect man and then fell into sin.
Eve's portrayal is also a bit uneven at times. She struggles with being a mom to her first two children, but when the story leaps ahead and she has dozens, she is super mom with no issues. She barely is affected by the death of Abel and is ready to marry off his widow within hours of his death. However, later on in the book when one of her daughters dies, then she is shown with intense grief. Eve's quick forgiveness of Cain is completed without any semblance of emotional struggle. (Adam actually gets a better storyline here.) She bares dozens upon dozens of children that she seems to barely have any relationship with, but has an incredibly close one with Enoch, her grandson. It's hard to get a handle on who she is as a person when there are so many fits and starts to the story.
My final issue is with the cover art. I am so disheartened to see a very white woman on this cover when she was most likely a woman of color. I think it does a great disservice to our brothers and sisters in faith around the world to keep portraying our first parents as white.
Overall, the novel lacks centrality of focus that limits it from being the great novel it could have been. I was given an advanced reader copy of the novel as part of the Revell Reads blogger team. All opinions expressed are my own.
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