Review of Eve: A Novel (Paperback)

K'wan is one of the best urban writers; one of the few whom I believe could step outside of the genre.He paints a believable picture of hood life, leaving the tired ghetto fabulousness to the many writers who lack creativity, and therefore use this same aspect repeatedly.K'wan has the skills and talent to tackle multiple points of view and perspectives.His characters are multi-faceted opposed to the once again tired ass hustler with limited thoughts, feelings and actions.

Despite all of that, he didn't impress with "Eve".

Like I said, K'wan tries to step outside the usual as far as street lit is concerned, but I noticed that his females are always light-skinned with long hair and hour glass shapes.I mention this because Eve is the single novel in which he focuses on the female as the main character - he even dedicates the book to the sisters.But this archetypal of the hood girl with video vixen looks and a biracial background is constant in K'wan's books, and that is contradicting when everything else he does is not repetitive.This is obviously the kind of woman he feels is the epitome of beautiful, but do we really need to read this description in every single book he writes?In Street Dreams, one of his best books in my opinion, the smutty girl with nappy hair is sheisty as hell while the red-bones are good as gold, but honestly I was glad the nappy headed biotch got her just deserts.Also, Street Dreams typically cute main female is sweet to death but meets a horrible fate.I just wondered why, out of all the other no-good female characters he writes about, K'wan had to do this one dirty.In Hoodlum the female character was nothing but a brain-dead tramp, but because she was the typical beauty her faults, though acknowledged, were not focused upon or really even deemed as bad.The main character, who was actually somewhat intelligent and should have wanted more in a woman, chased after this girl as if she had actually impressed him with something other than her "my lip gloss is poppin'" attitude and stripper body.It disappointed me to read about a decent young man who did not pursue a decent young woman.In Hoodrat, the two once again typically pretty girls have happy-enough endings while the less attractive ones do not (though I know one of them rightfully deserved what she got).

Again in "Eve", the girl who is not black as it is defined - as if a fully black female character is a horrendous thought for K'wan - has as close to a happy ending as is allowed in the game.(I must be fair though and mention that in this book, another of these typical, low-down but cute females met her demise, which was rare to read in a K'wan book).Eve's character was not quite right, I must say.She was meant to be hardcore (nearly dyke-y), but she was a virgin with an emotional side.The fact that she was only turning 18 in the middle of the book made me shake my head.So I was supposed to believe she was this hardcore when she was 12 years old?What is the rush to play commando?Actually, Eve's need to be in the streets robbing people as a little girl never made sense to me.Her parents were murdered but she had an uncle to take care of her, so she was another character who simply chose the streets.As a matter of fact at the beginning of the story she is just finishing up a bid in a correction facility for something she didn't do.

To finally cut to the chase, this story was scattered and it dragged on and on when nothing interesting was really even happening - and that's not like K'wan.Surely he does not rush his stories, but a faster pace would have done this one good.The climax, however, seemed a little TOO rushed, so he actually rushed in places he shouldn't have.Also, the climax of the story was dull in my opinion.Eve seemed incomplete in development, as if she were three different thrown-together people throughout the short time-span of the book.Her sides didn't seem to connect to me.I took me longer to read this book than any other K'wan book.Read "Eve" because the "star" is female, though an oddly put together female, is all I can say in the end.




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