Little Eve

I think you need to have a lot of patience when reading this, coz its SO confusing. Like I finished reading the book and I'm still so confused lol.

The twist was surprising yes, but like I said I am still very confused.

Loved the gothic and spooky vibes. But I wish we had gotten to know more about the ‘him' mentioned.

Would def recommend this for spooky season coz it gives all those creepy gothic mansion vibes.

Giving this a 3 star rating because I still dont know if I like this book or not.

So: this was absolutely NIGHTMARISH, and absolutely FANTASTIC.

This is very much a cult novel, and my days spent listening to Cult Podcast meant that I was able to perceive most of the red flags of the Adder and the community on Altnaharra. While there were plenty of moments where the strange experiences Eve and Dinah went through COULD be viewed as genuinely supernatural, my previous knowledge makes me skeptical of the characters’ experience. But that knowledge did not, in any way, diminish my enjoyment of the slow, horrific reveal of what was happening in Altnaharra. Cults share many similarities in how they operate, but the specifics of what was happening in Altnaharra were slowly revealed in such a way as to keep me riveted to the story.

And the main thing that helped keep the story riveting were the characters of Eve and Dinah, and the way Ward used the first-person perspective for the narration. I know there’s been a lot of arguing online about whether first-person POV or third-person POV is better; I, personally, think the argument of which is better is silly. The choice of POV doesn’t make a book better or worse; it is simply a tool that an author uses depending on the kind of story they want to tell. And in this case, using the first-person POV to narrate the story (except during certain moments) was an inspired choice: it renders Eve and Dinah into truly unreliable narrators, forcing the reader to live in their heads and see the world from their perspective. Just as they are trapped in the clutches of the Adder and in the tangled threads of their faith, so too is the reader trapped inside them, witnessing everything that happens to them. Crucially, the reader also sees the way they try to RATIONALIZE what happens to them; the reader knows it’s all terrible, and if one is aware of how cults function then one knows just HOW terrible it is, but at the same time one can do nothing. As I said, the reader is trapped in their own way, just as much as the residents of Altnaharra.

The way the plot’s laid out also enhances that feeling of being trapped and confused. The timeline jumps around a little bit, and while Eve and Dinah are the main narrators there are moments when other characters tell the story. Some readers might find this too disorienting and therefore consider this a negative, but in my opinion, it enhances that feeling of disorientation that the protagonists regularly find themselves in. Fortunately, Ward has a firm hold on the narrative reins, and not once does the story become TOO confusing.

Earlier, I called Eve and Dinah unreliable narrators, and while some people think that’s a negative, I think it makes them spectacular characters: imperfect, broken, and above all, survivors. Ward does not stint in showing how life in a cult can change the way a person interacts with the world, how absolutely DAMAGING it is, and those moments are some of the hardest to read. Even more disturbingly, the story unveils these moments slowly, in bits and pieces, so that the reader must piece them together to form the complete, horrific picture. Both Eve and Dinah do terrible things, many of which will make the reader flinch, but once one grasps what is really going on, it’s hard not to feel even the tiniest bit sympathetic.

While there are many themes covered in this book (especially the ones to do with religion, faith, and the lies we tell ourselves for the sake of survival), the one that really stood out to me was that of sisterhood. For all that they could be terrible to each other, the relationship between Eve and Dinah remained a beautiful, heartbreaking focal point. Their relationship forms the emotional heart of the novel, an anchor against the unrelenting horror of the Adder’s actions.

Another theme I picked up is one that I also noticed on Ward’s other novel, Sundial: that of monstrosity and transformation. In both Sundial and this novel, the protagonist grapples with the idea that they may be monstrous, or becoming thus, because of the way they were manipulated by authority figures. The theme is more prominent in Sundial than it is in Little Eve, but the fact that it is present in both novels suggests that this may be an idea that Ward likes exploring - and, in truth, does very well.

Overall, this was a truly nightmarish horror story, one made all the more horrific by the fact that cults do exist and manipulate their members in some way. This is definitely not for the faint of heart, but can be rewarding for anyone who can engage with it.

Might be my favorite of hers so far.