Lisa the Nerd

in a sentence or so: after discovering everything she's been taught is a lie, Eve is desperate to escape the true fate that awaits her. can she discover what's true and what isn't, even if she has to rely on the biggest enemy of all - men?Eve's grown up in an all-girl boarding school and had zero contact with the outside world. not that she'd want to, after the plague that killed off her mother and a solid chunk of the population and all. she's thrilled to be the top of her class and head off to study painting in the glamorous City of Sand and be part of the new generation and never worry about men manipulating and dominating her life.but Eve discovers a secret.a secret that shakes her.a secret that changes everything and what everyone means to her.this secret unravels her perspective on the world like a loose string being pulled on a sweater. with some vague instructions and a little help from an unlikely ally, Eve tries to make her way to safety across an unpredictable wilderness. she is surprised to discover friendship, and safety, in a group of boys living underground. even more surprising, they're not all awful.but with Eve being hunted down by the most powerful man in the country, can the boys risk keeping her around? can Eve really put all of them at risk, despite the support and connection she finds with them?i was all about this book from the very start. seriously, boarding school provides the ideal isolation for a solid dystopian opening. you KNOW you have an unreliable narrator on your hands. and if you know anything about me as a reader, you know i adore an unreliable narrator. it's a mystery that i love to solve and a character i love to watch develop.but the love for this book doesn't stop with my personal fangirling. oh no. i needed a partner with me to fangirl. and i found that fangirl in Anna from Anna Reads. here's a spoiler-free compilation of things we love about the book (in list form, DUH):- crazy ass conspiracy theories- redeeming characters!- underground dwellers!- tears. so many tears.- dystopian set in the scary woods- solid friendships between girls- Lord of the Flies reference!- serious stuff happens and serious consequences happen as a result- crazy cool codes!- explorations of love on all sorts of levelsi hope y'all are ready for me to pimp this book like CRAZY for the foreseeable future. i fell in love with this read and with Eve and with the crazy dark future Carey paints for us. this is a book that goes by quick, but leaves you pondering (and in my case, FANGIRLING) for quite awhile. this book has found a home in the top five books of 2011. oh yes, i went there.fave quote: "That may be what we're called," I answered. "But that's not what we are." (104)fix er up: there are a few details about post-plague survival that didn't really add up, but they weren't enough to keep me from falling in serious infatuation with this book.