EDEN, CJ Singh’s debut young adult novel, is a dystopia set in a not-so-distant future where a disease known only as the Fever has devastated the human population. Eden, a young woman who was born in the city where the Fever originated, now lives in a secluded forest with her makeshift family. Their life is peaceful, uneventful, and happy—that is, until a group of young men banished from the city stumble upon their home. Driven by curiosity and a sense of injustice, Eden befriends one of them, Jace, and they run off into the forest together, only to find that there’s an entire world her family has kept hidden. One of its secrets, in fact, has to do with Eden herself, and mysterious abilities she never knew she possessed. Those abilities are what come to save her—and what drive her directly into the shadowy history surrounding the Fever. When she and Jace find themselves back in the city, having learned too much about the past, they have to fight for themselves, and each other, to retain their humanity in the face of corruption and violence.
The world that Singh has built in this story is compelling and vivid. Eden’s forest home feels, indeed, like home, and the spaces Singh conjures in the city are eerily fascinating. The characters in EDEN are quite archetypal, including Eden, but they are still unique and easy to visualize. While the plot and its central ideas are satisfying, the narrative is slightly hamstrung by stiff prose and dialogue, as well as several distracting syntactical and tense-related issues throughout. It also has difficult pacing to keep hold of, in that there are several moments wherein it’s difficult to either know how much time has passed, or believe certain events could have transpired as quickly as they do. Nonetheless, EDEN’s strengths show that Singh is an imaginative and creative writer who has a good handle on what makes a story intriguing, as well as what makes characters likable. The questions posed by EDEN about what gives us our humanity are quite interesting, too. For fans of dystopian novels who want a new adventure, EDEN is worth exploring, and for those who are hungry for more, they can stay curious for what Singh will deliver in her upcoming sequel, Chimera.
Though its execution stumbles in places, CJ Singh’s dystopian thriller EDEN offers readers a thrilling plot and compelling characters, while posing interesting questions about courage and humanity.
~Jennifer Weatherly for IndieReader