I am at a loss to understand what the author was trying to say with the story.

Lucy is recently widowed and while dealing with the grief of losing her scientist husband she is approached by a scholar who knew her husband to smuggle some ancient writing out of Egypt.

Lucy is not a Lara Croft, yet she is plunged into intrigues that are worthy of a superhero. She now holds both this ancient secret, and the last of her husband's work. Both of which apparently threaten the "literalists" those whose interpretation of the scripture does not accept any argument or judgment. Some reviewers said the characters representing those, especially the Rabbi who was portrayed most clearly, were mere caricatures, but they served as representative bad guys, both religious and secular defendants of old mindsets and ideas.

In the course of trying to outsmart this old guard, Lucy is stranded in a place she calls Eden, located somewhere in Mesopotamia. And there is an Adam there who is also stranded for his own different reasons.

I kept reading to find out what is going to happen, while thinking at the same time that the novel took on too many strands of subjects without dealing with any of them properly. There are elements of coming to terms with grief, recognizing that what you know of your partner might not be their true substance, the role of art in the evolution of thought and humanity, and the tension between religion and spirituality. In the end it boils down to one question, is the quest for truth of ultimate importance or should we just be happy with believing whatever gives us comfort?

This I think was the take-home question for Lucy and the single pivoting point where her character developed. I am not sure about the rest.

The book still merits three stars for its thought provoking ideas and discourse. The story itself was lost between magical realism and an interpretation of a near-reality in a not-so-distant future.
I was not sure whether to suspend disbelief for the magical realism of it, or shake my head dismissively at the poor interpretation of reality. I ended up lost between the two options, suspended myself, like the guy on the orange parachute (what was HIS point anyway ?) . ( )

Adam & Eve is unlike anything else I've ever read. Part thriller, part exploration of biblical themes, this is a story that I at first thought would be very close to some other books I have already read. (Dan Brown perhaps?) However when I dove into the story, I was instantly blown away by the beautiful writing style and the metaphors on each and every page. Sena Jeter Naslaund doesn't just write the story for the reader, she shows it.

Let me go back a bit and explain. The first half (to about 2/3) of the book is dedicated to Lucy and Adam's stories. Lucy's husband was a world renowned astrophysicist who met an untimely death. It's not certain whether this was pure accident, but all Lucy knows is that she is now the sole keeper of files that have the ability to overthrow thinking as we know it. Intriguing, am I right? Then we meet Adam. A soldier who has been dumped in the middle of the desert, Adam believes that he is the Adam from biblical times. Out there alone, in his tiny Eden oasis, he believes he is the beginning of the world. The first man to ever have been made. In fact, he's a poor man who has been beaten half to death, but it's a fascinating parallel.

As these two characters meet and interact, I was smitten with the way the story progressed. There are lovely allusions to the story of Adam & Eve, along with topics that make you think beyond that. Basically the entire book is a battle between the idea of creationism, and scientific study. It definitely gets a little heavy handed at times, but I was able to loose myself in the overall story. That is, until the end. Once the first half of the book is over and these characters are ripped from their Eden, things were tough to follow. The already slightly overbearing topics of religion and science were even more apparent, and I didn't feel like following anymore. To be honest, I almost didn't even finish the book.

If I'm being honest, I'm not at all certain how I feel about Adam & Eve. The first half of the book held my attention beautifully, while the second half just descended into confusion for me. Therein lies the problem. I wasn't sure how to rate a book that I loved for half of it. So, I chose this rating. I hope this review accurately explains my views, even though I'm not 100% sure of them myself! If you pick this up to give it a try yourself, let me know what you think! ( )

I listened to this book and it kept me entertained at a point where I was driving 3 - 4 hours a day. ( )

I can't figure out where this book is going. Is it religious? Is it spiritual? Is it a mystery? Now that I have finished it, I still don't know where it was going. I enjoyed it though. ( )

(43) oh dear. I really liked 'Ahab's Wife' - maybe one of my favorite books of the last few years so I was looking forward to reading this. But ugh. A middle-age widow finds herself in possession of what may be a new "book of Genesis' which will shake up the major three religions idea of God and creation. The year is 2020 and she just happens to be able to fly small planes and after randomly being entrusted this scroll she flies out of Egypt and crashes into an oasis in Mesopotamia where she lives for many months with a handsome delusional young man who thinks he is Adam from the Bible and she is Eve. Some of the blurbs at the front cover suggest that only a writer of Ms.Naslund's talent could pull off such a storyline -- but I do not believe she pulled it off.

Terribly bloated and overwritten. mawkish. heavy-handed. ludicrous at times. Perhaps some of it was written tongue and cheek and/or satirically but it sure did seem to me she was trying to suspend belief and actually get readers to take the novel and its events seriously. If it was supposed to seem like a weird fairytale then somehow the vibe was off, because instead what it read like was a pretentious 'DaVinci Code.'

She is a fairly good prose stylist and I enjoyed looking up the real cave art and reading more about that. So I will eke out a generous 3 stars. But overall, I cannot recommend this novel and that makes me sad given how much I loved 'Ahab's Wife.' Now I am not sure I would even consider reading another of her novels. but perhaps this was just a one off . . . ( )