#Little Eve

[esme-elora]

Just finished Little Eve by Catriona Ward! One of those creepy books where you stay til the end to decipher what is happening, only for the truth to be worse than you thought. I absolutely devoured it. If you like books about cults, you'll like this one!

[myhikari21things]

Read of Little Eve by Catriona Ward (2018) (265pgs)

[fiction-quotes]

I am filled with memory.

  —  Little Eve (Catriona Ward)

[brightbeautifulthings]

Little Eve by Catriona Ward

"'Right and wrong--they are just words. When we are standing in the dark, holding a flaming poker, there is only one thing to consider and that is ourselves. Can we hold such an act within us, without being irrevocably changed?'"

Year Read: 2022

Rating: 2/5

About: Eve has been raised on the island of Altnaharra, her Uncle the Adder in a cultish religion that predicts the end of the world by giant serpent. For Eve and her family, it's very real, and Eve would do anything to inherit the Adder's power. When Chief Inspector Black arrives to investigate a murder in the nearby town, he puts doubt in Eve's heart for the first time. When their sacred ceremony goes badly wrong, her sister Dinah is the only one left standing to tell the story. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Macmillan-Tor/Forge. Trigger warnings: character/family death, drowning, rape, pedophilia, child abuse/abusive households (graphic, on-page), cults, eye horror, body horror, starvation, severe injury, violence, drugging, manipulation, snakes, sexism, guilt, strong religious themes.

Thoughts: I realized a while back that I was hardly ever making use of two stars in my reviews, instead lumping most books into three stars for various reasons, so I decided to change my strategy a little. When I finish a book, I ask myself the simple question, "Did you enjoy it?" If the answer is "No," then it's not a three-star book, no matter how well-written it might be. I didn't enjoy this book. It is well-written. My rating is a reflection of my enjoyment, not necessarily its goodness, so take that with a grain of salt.

Ward is excellent at layering mysteries so that we think we know what's going on, only for her to pull the rug out from under us at the end and show us what we should have been looking at all along. The answers were there, but with a little sleight of hand, she managed to misdirect us into looking somewhere else. I enjoyed that aspect of the novel and, indeed, the mystery of what happened and how it happened was one of few things that kept me going throughout the novel. The discrepancies in the past and present accounts were an itch in my brain. I had to know who was lying.

But goddamn, is it hard to read. I don't enjoy historical novels, and I don't enjoy novels about cults, and Little Eve is both. The thing about cults is that they only make sense from the inside, so any outsider (like the reader) is going to look at it and go: that is batshit crazy, why are you staying? And since I'm on the outside, I could never shake that question as I was reading. It's not that Ward doesn't do a good job of putting us in Eve's mindset, because she does. It's completely understandable why she thinks and acts the way she does, having such limited experience with the outside world.

But wow, that's a lot of abuse for a lot of pages, and it's an absolute drag to get through her chapters with her family. Her conversations with Chief Inspector Black were the only reprieve, and I couldn't summon a lot of feelings for any of the other characters besides horror or pity, depending. Black is a breath of fresh air, and I enjoyed his Sherlock Holmes-style appeals to reason, and all the little cracks he puts in Eve's belief in her family's magic. The novel does an expert job in walking the line between real or not-real, and for once, the answers are as satisfying as the questions. I’ll never be tempted to pick it up again though.

[goryfluff]

Nautilus expedition live streams (+ their commentary) 2020 / 2021 / 2022

[quirkycatsfatstacks]

Review: Little Eve by Catriona Ward

Author: Catriona WardPublisher: Tor NightfireReleased: October 11, 2022Received: NetGalleyWarnings: Rape, pedophilia, self-harm, child abuse/neglect, animal death, miscarriage Catriona Ward’s horror novels are always SO heavy hitting. Therefore, I try not to miss one – even when they touch upon heavier subjects that I generally try to avoid. Enter Little Eve, her latest terrifying read. We’ve…

[sailorsleepymoon]

I read a book called Little Eve by Catriona award yesterday and like. Man. The characters in it are so enthralling to me. It’s a VERY heavy read, there’s a reason some people call it horror or gothic lit, and it has one of the most poignant and realistic depictions of a cult I’ve ever seen in fiction. I think that’s part of what makes the characters so effective.

Eve and Dinah’s relationship especially is so interesting and melancholy to me. They have so much love for each other, even if they can’t say it or express it, and when things are bad they always sink back into each other. It’s especially heartbreaking because Dinah always longs for more and Eve doesn’t really, she just wants the people she loves to be with her. It makes watching the mystery unfold, knowing they can’t both escape all the while, all the more heartbreaking and melancholy because their care for each other is so palpable

[aslaughterofonesown]

Little Eve Brings Big Thrills

Hillary curled up with a book with snakes and exploding eyeballs and we cannot stress how good the book must be if she powered through that.

[evebestt]

"It was a raven that bore me news of Laena's death" he knows he fucked up

[gothtarrare]

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!

We, collectively as a society, NEED to return to making weird freak ass goth girls and overall weird girl characters!!!

We must return to the age of drawing weird little girls with knives and edgy sayings that belong on a 90s Hot Topic shirt!!!

THESE ARE THE TYPES OF OCS I WANT TO SEE FROM NOW ON, DAMNIT!!!!

I WANT TO SEE BLINGEE STYLE GIFS OF SAID OCS ON YOUR BLOG LIKE ITS YOUR FUCKING 2005 MYSPACE PAGE, GOD DAMNIT!!!

🗣🗣🗣AND YALL BETTER BE DESIGNING MERCH FOR YOUR WEIRD GIRL OCS TOO EVEN IF YOU AREN'T GONNA EVER MAKE SAID MERCH TRUST ME ITS FUN!!!🗣🗣🗣

[esme-elora]

Happy birthday to me! My lovely wife got me a huge book haul for my birthday. I'm already done with one and am onto the second! 🥳

[beingfictional]

Little Eve

Little Eve review @NetGalley #NetGalley #LittleEve #CatrionaWard #books #reading #horror #horrorbooks @Catrionaward

Title: Little Eve Author: Catriona Ward Genre: horror Thank you, NetGalley, for this book. This book is the third of Catriona Ward’s that I’ve gotten from NetGalley. The Last House on Needless Street was one of the best I read in 2021. And Sundial was delightfully disturbing. So, when I saw she had a new book out, I knew I had to read it. And wow, was this one excellent. Last House is still…

[daenysthedreamer101]

The Iron Throne is the most dangerous seat in the Realm

masterlist

[doctorsiren]

Mabel wearing the outfit I wore today :D

[joltrify]

experimentations ft. the Artpop queen herself

Silly little (not so little) unrelated HC I developed later under the cut

₊˚ ‿︵‿︵‿︵୨୧ · · ♡ · · ୨୧‿︵‿︵‿︵ ˚₊

🎀- HC that EVE's most normal hobby - when not occupied with other things - is repainting dolls 🎀- Like in a blue moon you can catch her at the hobby lobby in mom jeans and a cardigan just looking for materials

★- In her down time (which is a bit rare these days) Nadia'll pick those ball-jointed Barbie/Bratz/MH dolls and give them a complete makeover ☆- While she's making them she's fervently thinking 'I will love you in a way that no one else EVER has' and she treats them all that way ★- She'll repaint them in the most unconventional ways possible but they're still gorgeous; a perfect reflection of her studio artwork on a body that isn't her own ☆- Sometimes if she's low on fabrics, instead of making a full-sized mockup of her exhibition fits she'll use her dolls to test the outfit design and make a mini version of the fit with small pieces of the final material ★- She's got this HUGE shelf on her pad that's got these fashion icon dolls displayed with their name and inspiration on a little plaque ☆- Whenever something significant happens and she doesn't want to paint, she'll hold onto the feeling, good or bad, and jot down an idea for a new doll's look ★- and she DOES truly love each of them - though she may have had to learn to love one in particular

🎀- She picked up the hobby in college (before she met Zuke) but didn't really think anything of it 🌸- It was just a means to practice different makeup looks and pencil techniques without sculpting something - and it was fun! She liked having a cute little gal at the end of the process 🎀- When she came up with the idea of using the dolls as models, she created a doll of herself but made the decision to make its skin completely white 🌸- When Nadia met Zuke, she sort of put the hobby aside to focus on her other art mediums, but she looked at the doll of herself and felt comfortable enough to repaint the right side pink (and she laughed a bit to herself looking at the final result, because it looked... Cute! Just like her other gorgeous dolls...) 🎀- After Rapturica, she didn't feel the need to create a doll based on her feelings as she didn't feel as hurt as she expected, but she did find it really, REALLY hard to look at the doll of herself, so she hid it away... 🎀- she picked up repainting again later but went in HARD - they began to look more artsy and alien, just like her other art pieces 🌸- After graduating she didn't really have time to repaint dolls and focused on creating other arts/music again, only occasionally using them to test outfits (but never the one of herself) 🎀- After the events of NSR though, she picked it up again as a form of self-care. It's something she doesn't have to create for the public eye, and she's rekindled the joy of creating a strange little gal and loving them despite their bizarre quirks. 🌸- ... I think she feels a bit more comfortable looking at the doll of herself now, too.

★- She's probably still got doll repaint videos up on her channel from her college days, hehe. ☆- (She's debating whether or not to make a mini exhibition about the concept of dolls.* Likely not, as she doesn't want to taint the tranquility of the act, but she still likes the idea. It's better to not mix work art with home art, anyway.) (* (How they can reflect their caretaker, they exhibit both confidence and vulnerability, they can be broken and discarded but repaired, they're still images that can be moved in a 3d space however you desire, they rely on a person to actually be 'real' ykyk that kind of thing. the symbolism of dolls.)

The doodle I made in the 3rd picture (above the cut) is inspired by those really pretty doll repaints... I think that that look in particular is one that she tested on a doll first... pre-ugly cry, that is.

Thanks for reading my very silly idea... decorated the bullets with Bows and stars because I felt like it, haha. Have a lovely day~🌸

[goryfluff]

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