Title: Daughter of Eden: Eve's Story
Author: Jill Eileen Smith
Genre: Biblical Fiction
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
I’ve always been intrigued by the account of creation in Genesis. What was it like for the first two people God created? How did Adam feel when he woke up to the newly-created Eve? How did Eve feel as she experienced a perfect relationship with both her husband and her Creator? And how did they survive when they lost paradise through their own stubborn actions and were suddenly cast into a perilous world?
This book seeks to answer those questions.
Characters: Adam and Eve are both relatable characters, portrayed well. It’s understandable why they would eat the fruit of the forbidden tree (even as we’re all shouting at them not to do it). But there also isn’t too much depth to them. Maybe it’s just because the story rushed by so quickly (more on that in the writing section), but it was hard to feel that they were actually people.
We occasionally read from Lucifer’s viewpoint, which was interesting. Honestly, he came across as more of a pouting child than the fearsome adversary he is. Obviously, delving too deep into his perspective would have been disturbing, but… I don’t know. It felt too shallow.
Content: There mentions of Adam and Eve “coming together as man and wife” (written exactly like that). If you didn’t know what that meant, you wouldn’t learn anything from here. Adam and Eve discuss having a baby (how long it will take, what it will do to Eve’s body, etc.), and Eve gives birth on page a few times (but there’s nothing graphic at all).
Adam and Eve’s children marry each other (which seems creepy to us, but it really wasn’t for them).
Demons appear on earth and snatch human girls to rape them, thus creating the Nephilim (which… we can debate later).
Cain’s murder of Abel happens on page, but again, it’s not graphic. It’s just terribly sad.
Writing: While the author does a great job of presenting Eve’s story from beginning to end, it’s just too much, given the small size of the book. To cover nearly 1,000 years adequately would require at least double the page count. As such, the story feels rushed. We regularly skip ahead thirty, fifty, even hundreds of years into the future. It’s hard to keep up with it all.
There’s so much untapped potential in this story. If the author had spent a few more years on it, it could have been a truly epic tale. But I understand that that’s not really the purpose of the book, so take that as you will.
Summary: This book made me think. It wasn’t as deep as I wanted it to be, nor did it cover all that I felt it should have. But it intrigued me, to the extent that I would have read it in one sitting if I’d had the time. It’s not a perfect book by any means, but I did enjoy it, and I’d recommend it to biblical fiction fans aged 16+.