Relic (The Books of Eva I)

Eva knows the Testing is no dance class. Gallant Testors train for their entire lives to search icy wastelands for Relics: Out in the Boundary Lands, Eva must rely on every moment of the lightning-quick training she received from Lukas—her servant, a Boundary native, and her closest friend now that Eamon is gone. But there are threats in The Testing beyond what Lukas could have prepared her for. And no one could have imagined the danger Eva unleashes when she discovers a Relic that shakes the Aerie to its core.

Hardcover , pages. Published October 29th by Soho Teen first published January 1st Books of Eva 1. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Relic , please sign up. Lists with This Book. Dec 12, Khanh, first of her name, mother of bunnies rated it did not like it Shelves: All this evil spawned from the worship of the false god Apple For fans of Game of Thrones?

This is more like the result of feeding a copy of The Hunger Games through an industrial-sized paper shredder and mixing up the remnants with the stinking, rotting entrails of "We need to learn again of the hunger for Tylenols that poisoned our minds; the thirst for Cokes that weakened our bodies; the greed for MasterCards that toppled our rulers. This is more like the result of feeding a copy of The Hunger Games through an industrial-sized paper shredder and mixing up the remnants with the stinking, rotting entrails of a long-deceased direwolf.

But one of their bigger, more threatening, less cute relatives. The setting can only be described generously as mediocre. The heroine is a piece of fluff, so insignicant and insipid that I can't even hate her. Her internal monologue is an endless litany of anemic observations and internal monologue full of mind-boggling monotony. A Maiden must do this!

A Maiden must do that! I'm such a bad Maiden! There is nothing about Eva that makes her a credible character, much less one capable of fulfilling the Testing process. There is nothing about Eva that indicates toughness, ability, capability, and I am simply aghast at how easily she fulfils her tasks in this book. I am very determined. It means jack shit. Determination is nothing if you don't have the strength and the skills to back it up, and Eva has NOTHING with which to back up her determination to complete the Testing in memory of her brother.

And while we're counting down the crap, naturally, there's a love triangle between a dark native boy of a low social class and a perfect, high-society golden Guardian boy that goes fucking nowhere. You'll find out in the sequel! Some of you may secretly suspect that I'm a evil evil wicked terrible hate-filled person with blackness in her heart who thinks the majority of the people on this earth are a complete waste of air.

You would be correct. With that said, I grudgingly concede the fact that humans in general are pretty fucking smart, which makes the entire premise of this stupid book absurd beyond belief. We believe in reincarnation. If I were destined to be reincarnated into a society such as this, I'd ask the gods to just fucking terminate my soul already. I don't want to live in a society and inhabit a body that could be so fucking gullible. It's ish years in the future? The polar caps melted, and the world is doom, doom, doomed, washed out in a ginormous flood. Billions of people have died; our current society would call it a tragedy beyond belief, a disaster, a horror unimaginable.

This moronic excuse society calls it "The Great Healing. I call them the New Taliban explanation later. All remnants of modernity our current society is banned; Apple the brand is feared, reviled beyond belief as the instigator and root of all that is sinful, depraved, evil. Viable land is only available in the North, where our current society is settled. Every 10 years, a new leader, a Chief Archon is selected to be the leader of their people through a process called Testing, and through the writing of an exemplary Chronicle.

Eva and Eamon are twins; she is a Maiden, he is a Guardian, who has been training to be a Testor his entire life only to die several months before the actual Testing starts. Eva decides to perform the test in his place, despite a lifetime spent being a proper young Maiden, despite having undergone little training, despite her role she has been preparing for her entire life, as a "pretty, slender, and demure Maiden. It's a two-parter, composed of riding a sled through to the next part as fast as possible, which doesn't really seem to matter at all in the run of things because the speed doesn't seem to make a whit of a difference as long as you get to the next fucking part of the Test, and an excavation of an icy chasm in order to find a Relic.

The entire thing is more luck than skill; if you happen to find a good Relic, you're golden, if not, you're shit out of luck. Let's make this clear: Eva's valuable contribution to society, her immensely prized Relic, the one that gets her so much praise and laudation is Along the way, there's some whisperings of doubts about society that's more of an afterthought than anything else.

Until the sequel no, thank you.

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There is no intrigue. There is little action. There is no danger.

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There is nothing in here remotely evocating anything similar to The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones and I fucking hate books and premises that make these incredbily grandiose claims that invoke those famous books in vain. A well-done setting is woven into the fabrics of the story, it does not rely on a fucking TIMELINE at the beginning of the book to describe the history of the dystopian society.

It does not rely on a fucking textbook recitation and monotonous incantation of text in order to tell the reader about the past. I raise my eyes and lift my hands toward the heavens, as my father asks the Four Sacred Questions for the Feast of the Testing. There is so much wrong with this book, and much of it has to do with the terrible, cheap world building. I said cheap, and I mean it. I have said it so many times in so many failed dystopian novels. The very backbone of a good dystopian novel is a credible premise, a credible society; this book fails on every single point.

From a credible background to a plausible post-apocalyptic society to the setup of that society, nothing makes any bloody sense. This book doesn't build a dystopian society from the ground up, it starts with the idea of what it wants the society to be, and twists facts and events of the past around to fit its needs. The current society is something years in the future, and according to the timeline, a new religion was established some 10 years after the devastating events of the Flood.

It takes a hell of a lot more than that to erase the memories of people, to instill within them the fact that this and that is evil, it takes hundreds of years, it takes the collective belief of everyone, I refuse to believe that the survivors are brainwashed so much that a whole new lexicon of gods and new definitions of good and evil can be established within that short of a time. The dystopian society within the book is just terribly built. I don't even know how many fucking people there are remaining in this society. There are no customs, there are no descriptions, there is no mention of what their structure is besides that of the top people.

We don't know how society works. We don't know how they live their life, day by day. We know they have a greenhouse where they grow food, but that's pretty much it. I don't know what the buildings look like, I don't know how society works, I don't know any fucking thing about this society besides the fact that it's unfair and I'm supposed to hate it because Eamon's journal mentions something vague about its falseness. It's the fucking frozen Arctic. Right now, with all our current technology, humans still don't settle there. People don't settle there for a reason, few do, like the Inuits.

It's a hard fucking life. You have to work your fucking ass off, hunting and gathering. If a new society fucking settles there in the future, I want to see some viable proof that their society can exist. As far as I can tell, the people in this book pulled their survival skills right out of a polar bear's ass. You see, they have ruuuuuuuules. It's the fucking New Taliban. Girls are called Maidens. They have RULES imposed on them, they have to be modest, short dresses are a no-no, if they could wear it which they can't, cause If I had balls, they'd be frozen off by now and I'd be female by process of frosty castration.

Taliban, gather me some bullshit: That's paracetamol for you UK peepz Apple is the literal root of evil because these fucking morons think that Apple is the cause for society's downfall, and any mention of The Ebiiiiiil God Apple gets you a clutching of pearls and some swooning. Girls and women are treated like we're fucking pussies, man.

Let's get one thing straight, when you need to survive, all thoughts of gender inequalities go out the fucking window. You would think in the harsh Arctic, women would be treated equally because you would need all women to work as hard as men to gather resources, food, supplies, right? It was that way in the American West, farmers and their wives worked side by side to survive. This book says "fuck you" to that concept of gender equality. Instead, it has established a rigid, structured society where women are weak, wilted, fainting fucking flowery fairies.

Here are some of those fucking gems for you, according to the Bible-like rule of books, the Lex: This society wouldn't last a day in Canada, much less the Arctic. Stop it with the whole ice cap melting thing already, YA dystopia: Cause it ain't happening.

Relic (The Books of Eva I) by Heather Terrell | www.newyorkethnicfood.com: Books

Five minutes of research will tell you this. All that will happen when the ice caps melt is that society will have to move further inland. It's not going to be like fucking Waterworld. Billions of people are not going to die from floods, let me ease your mind on that. No worries, because we'll die of starvation, war, and disease first.

I know humans are terrible. I know we're destroying the planet, but we didn't get this way by being fucking idiots in the past several thousand years, so don't try to sell this book's sorry ass bullshit excuse of a society on me.

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Humans are some puny-ass fucking creatures with neither extra horns nor legs or bulked up strength; pitch us against a hippo or a ginormous predator and chances are in favor of the thing with teeth and horns and a lot of fucking anger at the tasty snack that has invaded its personal space. But goddamn it, we have a huge brain capable of a tremendous amount of intellect, capable of higher thinking and analytical skills even if such capacities go completely unused in some people.

I don't want to name names, but their names rhyme with Lardashian. It's worked out so well that in nary a few thousand years, we've gone from Yabba-Dabba-Dooing cavemen to being on the verge of destroying entire ecosystems and bringing forth another Ice Age before it's due to naturally happen. So don't sell me on the idiotic premise of this book. I can't help but feel like this book would have been better if it were rebranded and resold as a satire.

Maybe it is a satire. Maybe I'm wrong all along. View all 48 comments. Aug 14, Faye, la Patata rated it did not like it Shelves: Since we're way past the time when Paranormal Romance was the trend, many have deemed it proper to attribute their dystopian books to the one and only that started this "Dystopian Craze", the Hunger Games. However, when books get compared to this precious book in their blurbs and synopses, I instantly become wary and suspicious, not only because I'm against riding the success of another novel, but also because, more often than not, the excitement that was built would only result to mere and utte Since we're way past the time when Paranormal Romance was the trend, many have deemed it proper to attribute their dystopian books to the one and only that started this "Dystopian Craze", the Hunger Games.

However, when books get compared to this precious book in their blurbs and synopses, I instantly become wary and suspicious, not only because I'm against riding the success of another novel, but also because, more often than not, the excitement that was built would only result to mere and utter disappointment. I just find it absolutely sad that there are attempts to make a half-assed dystopian book just to ride the bandwagon. I guess publishers has noticed this, so they decided to put in another great series to the mix to attract readers: My friends, if you've watched and read the books, you'll see that GoT is very, very complex.

It features an intricate and intriguing web of relationships and scandals that can even shock the hardest of hearts. It features twists and turns that would make a reader cry and throw the books in good frustration. Relic doesn't even come close. Did it frustrate me?

Hell yes, it did. I am utterly offended how it even dared to say it's for fans of the Hunger Games AND the Game of Thrones when its premise is so ridiculous and simple. I am offended how the blurb said it's a high fantasy when it's nowhere near like it. I'm offended how it promised me a good read when throughout reading it, I was either a. Okay, first, the premise. I understand the need to give something original, but holy mother of god, this is not something I would've considered for any book even if I were high on drugs. So some apocalyptic event happened that killed billions of people on Earth not explained what it was yet , and a handful of people evacuated to the icelands in the North and found a new settlement called New North.

Two hundred years later, the community became more backward than forward with the women doing maidenly, demure roles who can't possibly do hard work as the men, and the men being chivalrous and shit and blah blah blah. There is obvious marginalization and there are even classes where some are deemed higher than the others. Right, I'm expected to believe something like that when their ancestors just came from the world we have today. But alright, for the sake of this book, I'll go along with that. Then, we find out that this new civilization worships some sort of sacred book that dictates their laws and traditions called The Lex.

And their leaders tell the people that the world has ended due to certain evils. What are these evils, you ask? They blame the end of the world on man-made medicine like Tylenol, Advil, Prozacs for ruining the mind; on sodas like Coca-Cola for weakening the bodies; on cards like Visas, MasterCards, American Express for toppling rulers; and on the super tech company Apple They believed their ancestors worshipped this god, with the tablets like iPads as their altars and shit like that.

Granted, the book explains later on albeit rather shakily that things are not what they seem and that there is a huge gasp lie, but sweet baby jesus, what the flying fuck is this??!! Sure, I've never seen something like this before, but there's a good reason why it has never been seen before, and it's because it's just beyond ridiculous.

Am I supposed to take something like this seriously? When you're making a dystopia, the book has to make sure the premise is believable. You have to make sure that the reader would also think the setting is feasible in the future, and that you instill an internal fear of what is going to happen and what may happen. Tylenol, Advil, Coke, Mastercard, Apple Take all of that and forget about wars of conquests, or religious wars, or attempts of making nuclear energy and weapons, just blame it on poor Santa Clause Coke for making us all obese and unhealthy.

The book tried to be serious and different, but it still read like the same formulaic books we've been given throughout the years. There's a hierarchy, some Triad leaders, and of course, there's the competition where the brightest of the generation go against each other in the cold wild to look for relics from the past that would remind the community the role these relics had in the destruction of the world two hundred years past. Eva, the main character, who only had a few months of training compared to the others who have prepared for this all their lives, go against them and all odds, to win for her deceased twin brother.

The internal first-person narration of Eva was awful. It was very monotonous and robotic, and very telling than showing. Paragraphs upon paragraphs, pages upon pages, I'd been given descriptions of what the main character was seeing, the description of the surroundings, what she was doing, etc. She was as bland as a cardboard, and as interesting as watching paint dry.

Usually, when we have first person narratives, it should be more personal, more intimate. I should be given a deeper relationship with the character, but because it was so fucking dull, I didn't feel for her and didn't even root for her. I just wanted to get this book over with already. And the times where there were personal thoughts, it would be in the form of questions. Question after question after question, giving the impression that she's really deeper than what we think her to be, but I've always found this a cheap tactic. There would be questions like non-verbatim: Is Jasper really who I think he is?

Or did he just come up to me to make me believe he was really hurt or was he just spying on me? What did Eamon mean when he said he must do what he must? Was he going to do something unthinkable? There were a lot more but I've forgotten most of them. These are just some of the questions that I thought from the top of my head, but probably aren't the questions word-for-word. But, in any case, the deal here is the narration never felt personal to me. It was too formal for my taste.

It was dull, it was lifeless, and I skimmed so much that I didn't even miss anything vital. And did I say she had no personality whatsoever? Yeah, that and kept on mentioning her twin brother all the time. As a character, she didn't grow at all. She was monotonous and dull from start to finish, and the scenes that were supposed to be exciting were dragged along by her lifelessness.

It was just mind-numbingly boring. And lol, the entrance of the romance in the end was so anti-climactic. Here we are, talking about lies and scandals and then, "Can you not see my feelings for you? Also, what is up with the jargon of words sprinkled all over the book? There were a lot of unfamiliar words placed here and there that I never really understood and never really thoroughly explained, like "upernagdlit", "inuit", "nunassiaq", and "quiasuqaq".

Overall, I'm sorry to say but I cannot recommend this book. You're free to read it for yourself and form your own conclusions, but I, personally, did not enjoy it, and would not wish my family and friends to endure the same torture. Do not let the blurb fool you - aside from the competition theme, it's not similar to the Hunger Games, and it's not even half as close to the Game of Thrones. If you're going to read this book with the expectation of reading something like those series mentioned, you will be sorely disappointed. View all 18 comments.

Jul 05, Lisa rated it did not like it. Really wanted more from this book -- I was told it was the next big thing in YA Lit so I knew not to believe that. However, I was expecting an okay kinda read. Great concept, but the plot was insultingly formulaic and not very believable. Character development was non-existent.

And the writing was boring. I'm also supposed Really wanted more from this book -- I was told it was the next big thing in YA Lit so I knew not to believe that. I'm also supposed to swallow that someone with 4 months of training can compete in this ultimate outdoor survival competition with people who have been studying their entire lives?

Normally, you expect a character to grow and change as they go through their story, but Eva stays the same monotone cardboard cutout of a plucky heroine throughout. The opportunity for excitement and terror and thrills were all there, but at no time did my heart rate increase -- not even when Eva hunted down the Musk Ox or when she discovered her Relic.

Relic (the Books Of Eva I)

Yes, I learned a lot of Inuit words and know more about repelling down an ice cliff than I did before I read the book. But that's not why I read it. Aug 19, Kayla Beck rated it really liked it Shelves: However, I was pleased with what I got. Relic is an imaginative mixture of post-apocalyptic quasi-dystopia with an epic quest aimed at a young adult audience.

Sadly, there is no magic or fantasy. Dear Game of Thrones Comparer, Here there not be dragons. There are perfectly good books that stand well on their own. It's a good book. It is Relic , and I demand that the comparisons stop. In the New North, the icy last human habitation on the planet, people have reverted to living in a medieval manner - women are demure cattle and left to their sewing or other womanly pastimes suitable for those unlucky enough to be born with vaginas, and men are everything else because they are men and penises are the best.

Yep, this vibe was there. There is also a social hierarchy because gender discrimination is never enough. Be honest - who doesn't love a good caste system? My favorites were the bottom of the caste - the Boundary natives - who quietly abode the people of Aerie for Very Good Reasons. They are good, kind people, and I plan on running away with one of them if the New North thing ever comes about. Eva is a Maiden i. She has stepped out of the role expected of the women of Aerie gasp! This is not a testing like in recent YA novels or The Hunger Games - it is a quest young men and Eva must undertake in order to become an Archon.

Eva does this as a way to stay connected with her twin brother Eamon, as this was always his dream. Because their holy book, the Lex , does not specifically prohibit the penisless gender from undertaking the challenge, she's the first Maiden to do so in years. The world-building and story itself was pretty good. The world has flooded because humanity was too obsessed with its evil false god, Apple, and used false remedies like Tylenol and other silliness. The people of the New North were those who were saved to live a more righteous life.

The Archon-wannabes were extreme archaeologists for a month trying to find the best relic and tell the best story be chosen for the coveted job. It was interesting to read. I could say more about the New Northerners ideas about our world, but I don't want to spoil it. I just wish there had been some more character development. If you're interested in reading about a girl who decides to become more than the vagina, take on an epic quest, and question what her society is based on, I highly recommend the book.

Relic is Relic and pretty damn good. The book was likely provided to the tour by the publisher or author, which has in no way affected the outcome of my review.

All opinions expressed are rambling, honest, and completely my own. Nov 07, Debbie Lester rated it it was amazing. In a post-apocalyptic icy world a young girl must test her survival skills and her beliefs about her society. This is a coming of age story that begs the question, is the history we have been taught real or is it colored by time and what the government Dystopian fiction meets high fantasy in Heather Terrell's first book in The Books of Eva series, Relic.

This is a coming of age story that begs the question, is the history we have been taught real or is it colored by time and what the government wants us to believe? This is a powerful young adult novel that will have readers thinking beyond the box and outside the boundaries of what they already know. I wasn't sure quite what to expect with this novel when I received it for review. My daughter is a huge fan of The Hunger Games series and I was afraid that this book would be too similar to peak my interest. Though there are threads comparable to Suzanne Collins' books here, there are some very strong differences.

When most readers look at a book from the dystopian genre there are several things usually present. Most dystopian literature is post-apocalyptic, as is this one. But most dystopian works feature a lot of violence and killing. Relic is different in the fact that there is basically no violence at all. The competitors in the testing are not competing to survive at the cost of the other Gallants. They are competing to see who can bring back the most influential relic, a piece of history frozen in time.

I liked the fact that Terrell didn't need all the violence to make this story interesting. She kept the readers focus by attention to detail and great storytelling. This is basically a quest novel. Eva's brother Eamon has met an early death as he trained for the testing.

A maiden has not tested in over years but Eva wants to honor the memory of her brother. She is underestimated by her family and her community but she has more heart than they believe she ever could. She faces the Arctic tundra and braves more than just the elements to bring back a Relic that may change the course of history for her people.

Eva is a wonderful character. Resourceful and full of surprises. She challenges what she knows to be true at every turn and defies the odds against her. Terrell does a masterful job of giving readers a protagonist that is worthy of the title. I liked the fact that Relic differs from other books in the genre in the fact that instead of being a highly evolved society, Aerie has basically went back in time instead of forward. When the Healing flood brought on by the misuse of the Earth cleansed the world, everything changed.

But what Eva and the rest of her community have come to believe, may not be what really happened. I loved that digging up the artifacts allowed everyone to learn more about the Earth's culture before the Healing and what caused the destruction. I liked the idea behind the Lex and how those rules were set down. I also enjoyed the fact that Eva's discovery challenges the status quo and what everyone believes to be true.

Beyond being a great heroine based adventure story, Relic has a message. Perhaps sometimes we need people who think a little differently in our world. Being unique and different gives you a different perspective on the world at large. Don't always take what someone tells you as gospel. I think this is a great start to a great series for teens and adults. I think Terrell does a great job of drawing the reader in and making them think. In short, I want my kids to read this book. I want them to explore their own ideas and broaden their horizons.

This is the kind of novel that does that. Aug 05, Pamela marked it as dnf Shelves: I was extremely excited when this came into the office as an ARC--I had just added it to my possibly-buy-me list and it sounded really intriguing. Things are not going well when I catch myself rolling my eyes within the first 30 pages. I just double-checked my book. My edition says in big angry letters on the back: I'm always looking for something new to offer to fans of The Hunger Games or Divergent.

This seemed like a contender I was extremely excited when this came into the office as an ARC--I had just added it to my possibly-buy-me list and it sounded really intriguing. This seemed like a contender Maybe the story gets better. But I'm so put off by the wackadoodliness official word of the whole premise that I have no desire to keep going. The book takes place years in the future, give or take. In that span of time, human civilization has managed to revert back to Ye Olde Vikinge Rayder Tymes, with maidenly Maidens who swoon for their courtly Gallants, marginalized indigenous people okay, so unfortunately that is still a reality!

There's also a strange religious fanatacism called Lex which dictates everything and which, this being a dystopia, no one questions until Our Protagonist dares to challenge the status quo. Again, if this is more fully explained later in the book, I slightly apologize for lambasting it here. What does that make Microsoft? I read through where Eva and her competitors ride out on husky sleds to compete to be the next Archon like a mayor, I think??? And I just couldn't do it. Please don't think I hate books that you read just for the fun of it, ignoring the logic or lack thereof.

I like those kind of popcorn-movie-books. They are not ashamed of being bubbly or over-the-top or, like Matt Reilly's books, using italics all over the place which is actually an enormous lot of fun. Relic , however, tries too hard to be serious and jump on the dystopian bandwagon. Let's even just reason through the whole compete-to-be-Archon thing. Granted, this happens every ten years, but that is almost a dozen young people who could help rebuild civilzation that these people just toss out on the tundra. Now, I did skim ahead to the end, and I can see how the weirdness of the whole false-Apple-worship thing was explained a tiny bit, but there's still so much that the reader is just expected to swallow.

Lukas, a Boundary dweller and former servant, still visits her in the dead of the night. And he alone may know who killed her twin brother. Her feeling for Lukas are forbidden. Even more troubling is his conviction that she is the Angakkuq, a mystical figure destined to destroy the Aerie. What they find in the Genesis upsets the fragile balance between the Aerie and the Boundary, and threatens to destroy their entire civilization. Ellie was never particularly good at talking to boys—or anyone other than her best friend and fellow outcast, Ruth. Then she met Michael. Michael is handsome, charming, sweet.

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