Dark Eden - Chris Beckett

Date Started: 11/28/14

Date Finished: 12/1/14

Ok, I had no idea what I was getting into with this book. I was intrigued by the premise and that was about all I knew. Apparently this has been big in the UK? So here is what the back of the book says (in part): 

On the alien, sunless planet they call Eden, the 532 members of the Family take shelter beneath the light and warmth of the Forest’s lantern trees. Beyond the Forest lie the mountains of the Snowy Dark and a cold so bitter and a night so profound that no man has ever crossed it. 

The Oldest among the Family recount legends of a world where light came from the sky, where men and women made boats that could cross the stars. These ships brought us here, the Oldest say—and the Family must only wait for the travelers to return. 

But young John Redlantern will break the laws of Eden, shatter the Family and change history. He will abandon the old ways, venture into the Dark...and discover the truth about their world.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

This is a brutal, stark existence. Everyone is inbred, because everyone came from two people (get it, "Eden"?). And it's sad because they talk about things from Earth, stories passed down from the original two, Tommy and Angela - and yet they have no idea what those things are or if people from Earth will ever come back for them (though that's what they hope for beyond anything). 

This story is dystopian in nature and the narrators are all teens...but while other dystopian books stick to a lot of the same social norms, this one does not. Sex isn't sex, it's a "slip", and it doesn't have any meaning, really, beyond the rules that you're not to do it if it's unwanted and old men aren't to do it with young girls. But otherwise it's pretty meaningless and kids have no idea who their dads are. So that element of this book was...disturbing, at least to me. It's like the future I never want for my kids, basically. 

Set against this horrible reality is the main narrator, John Redlantern, who realizes that food is running out and they can't keep doing the same thing forever. Long story short, he gets kicked out of Family, a bunch of kids defect to be with them, and he convinces them to cross over the Snowy Dark - which they do, successfully, and find a forest larger than any of them could imagine, which will sustain far greater numbers than where they came from. At the end of the book they also find the ship that had set out to go back to Earth...meaning that no one from Earth knows they are there or that they exist. And in the face of that, they decide to push on in this life - the only life -they've ever known. Bleak.

I'm not gonna lie - I really wanted a ship from Earth to come and find them and for the book to end with them seeing the sun for the first time. But hey, as books go, this one was good. It was like Clockwork Orange mixed with Lord of the Flies mixed with The Giver. An interesting read.