In Compound Eleven, the hierarchy of the floors is everything.My name is Eve Hamilton, and on my floor, we fight.Which at least is better than the bottom floor, where they toil away in misery. Only the top floor has any ease in this harsh world; they rule from their gilded offices.Because four generations ago, Earth was rendered uninhabitable—the sun too hot, the land too barren. Those who … too barren. Those who remained were forced underground. While not a perfect life down here, I’ve learned to survive as a fighter.
Except my latest match is different. Instead of someone from the circuit, my opponent is a mysterious boy from the top floor. And the look in his eyes tells me he’s different…maybe even kind.
Right before he kicks my ass.
Still, there’s something about him—something that says he could be my salvation…or my undoing. Because I’m no longer content to just survive in Eleven. Today, I’m ready to fight for more than my next meal: I’m fighting for my freedom. And this boy may just be the edge I’ve been waiting on.
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Wow, I just loved this book and had trouble putting it down. Took me two nights to get through it and become lost in this incredible world. Though it wasn’t fast paced there was something about it that drew me in and wouldn’t let me go. SO much angst! I totally loved the main characters, the kick ass heroine and the even bigger kick ass hero YUM!!!!!! Highly Recommend 🙂
I’ve been a fan of dystopian novels for years, and I’m glad they’re making a comeback. With the MC being a fighter, I felt shades of Katniss from the description.
Saying Eve is a strong female protagonist is an understatement. She’s fierce, physically strong, confident, and occasionally independent to a fault. In her world it’s easier to keep your head down, accept your station in life, and not hope for anything more. But Eve isn’t much of a follower and doesn’t necessarily believe everything she’s been told about the world above. She’s also more curious than most cats I’ve come across.
There are a number of tropes in this book, but some of them are necessary components for what happens later in the plot. When Wren steps in as the possessive-I’ll-fight-your-battles-for-you boyfriend, Eve lets him know in no uncertain terms she doesn’t need his help. The problem is that sometimes we all need help, but her flaw is not realizing it and refusing to ask for it in certain situations. A beautiful ex-girlfriend who hasn’t quite accepted the breakup is also in the mix, but serves a purpose. I’d hoped for more information about Wren. Hints are dropped about his backstory and a statement is made that I’d have serious questions about if I were Eve, but they weren’t addressed. I have to assume more details will be revealed in the next book.
With an immersive, fast-paced beginning, I was immediately caught up in the story, but there’s a long lack of action in the middle. In the last 20%, the plot moves at a break-neck pace, and those developments bumped up my overall rating.
Escaping Eleven is gritty, violent, and dark, but those aspects fit Eve’s and Wren’s world. It’s an enticing debut, and the next book will absolutely be on my TBR.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Is the idea completely original? No. It feels a bit Veronica Roth, a bit Suzanne Collins, and for some reason gives me a bit of some Doctor Who episodes. What’s different is the execution. It’s not as revolutionary as Suzanne Collins, who might have Eve and Wren (our protagonists) thinking they can fight the system and win; and it’s not as combative as Veronica Roth, who might have Wren and Eve trying to attempt a coup from within Compound Eleven, the underground “city” compound where this book is set and where it takes its name from. Instead, Jerri Chisolm takes into account the feeling we all have today about systemic oppression: you can’t fight the system when you’re caught up in it. If the system is holding you down, you are stuck. It’s systemic for a reason, and it imprints itself on your DNA and lingers for generations. The only way to fight the system is to escape it. But no one escapes a system that’s been in place for as long as Compound Eleven has been without coming out unscathed.
I loved the tension that ran tight, like a wire, throughout this whole book. As always, I love a good book that has as little filler as possible and is neatly edited. This is one of those books.
Thank you to Netgalley, Entangled Teen and the author, Jerri Chisholm, for providing a copy of Escaping Eleven (Eleven Trilogy book 1). I have reviewed honestly.
Escaping Eleven features, but is not limited to, the following themes:
Dystopian
Young Adult
Light romance
Enemies to lovers
Underground community
Kickass FMC
My overall rating for Escaping Eleven is…
5 Stars!
Astonishing. Escaping Eleven was an exhilarating adventure of friendships, love and survival in a dogmatic dystopian world. The world building was incredible, I loved every aspect of this futuristic tale. Theres something incredibly exciting about an underground community hiding from the unforgiving heat of the sun. Eve is the perfect, daring, dystopian hero; Katniss and Tris, it’s time to step aside. I love her personality and her unique views on certain compound traditions and traits that the others follow blindly. I also loved her dedication in making her beliefs and dreams come true. I loved learning about the politics and hierarchies. The friendships were beautifully formed and the love interest was book-boyfriend candy. I can honestly not fault this book and I’m so excited to continue Eves story in “Unravelling Eleven.”
Throwback to all the best of the YA dystopia genre of the 2000’s and 2010’s.
Compelling characters, wonderful writing, cool plot.
Full gif-ied review here: https://multicoloredbookreviews.home.blog/2021/09/27/escaping-eleven/
A Dystopian story through and through, civilization was forced to go underground because of climate change. As always we have a corrupt system within Compound Eleven that is handling everything the wrong way. We get Eve, a strong girl that tries her best to get to the outside, then we have Wren, a boy that wants to protect her. We get Eve’s inner thoughts and see the world in a very interesting way, as the author did the narration in a way we still get some mystery behind them. The story is well developed and flows while reading it, the world-building is good, the main characters are in their teens but the story is not meant as a YA novel, but we get a lot of characters and they were very well developed. I can’t wait to see what awaits these two in the next installment!
Hope is as dim as the lighting in this underground society, where the levels you’re born on determine your worth.
Eve has just finished schooling and has six weeks to decide which job she’ll take for the rest of her life. Of course, each and every one of these jobs has one purpose…to support the lives of those on the levels above her. After they killed her younger brother, this is something she can never do. Forced underground generations ago, she lives in a society where the level of tunnels you live on determines your social ranking. So far, she’s done well thanks to her father’s training as a fighter in the favorite past time battles on her floor, but she sees that only as a preparation for her true, secret goal—to escape to the world outside…even if it means she’ll be scorched to death by the sun. For her, freedom is worth any price, and she will escape. No matter what.
It’s been awhile since I picked up a dystopian, and this one kept me pretty much in the pages until I hit the end. It is well written with characters, which dig in with dreams, emotions, pain and hope. It’s complexly woven, has surprises around every bend, includes action as well as heart-breaking scenes, and strips human nature down to its bare bones. There’s darkness and hope. Cruelty and love. There’s everything that a good dystopian needs to have.
Eve comes across harsh and with more corners than the stones of the tunnels she lives in. I never really decided if I like her or not, and sometimes I rooted for her, while other times, I wondered what she was thinking. But it fits her character. After all, she’s spent her entire life not only in less than ideal living circumstances, but as a heartless fighter. While the author tries to make her more ‘soft’ by adding volunteer work and a few unexpected friendships, it isn’t enough to round off her harsher side. But for some reason, that doesn’t hurt the story, and I’d have picked up book two already if it were out to continue Eve’s tale.
The world itself is dark, dreary, and pretty well described. I could almost smell the dusty air, sweat and sadness. Almost. While some moments are well built out, there’s a bit of further depth missing…not only on the world building end from the senses, but also on the background and more than a couple of the characters. But there’s still more to come in the series, and I am excited to see if this brings more on this end.
And there’s romance. This sweetens the pot and takes over the story line more than once. I do love the hero in this one, although I’m not sure of his background or the motives behind his actions completely, either. (As said, missing background on many characters) Still, he has the heart of gold Eve’s missing and adds the necessary zest.
Dystopian fans will want to grab this one up, especially those who like more than a dusting of romance. There are a few genre cliches, and the world building does remind of other dystopian reads, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy this read. It was fun to dive into a well done dystopian again…and I am looking forward to book two.
I received an ARC and enjoyed this one enough to read it in only two sittings.
Escaping Eleven is an immersive, action-packed story about one girl’s fight for freedom. In this dystopian world, the earth was too hot to survive, and people were forced to live in underground compounds. Eve, a sixteen-year-old fighter on the cusp of choosing her career, is stifled by the hierarchal rules and restrictions. Eve desires freedom above all else. Haunted by the loss of her younger brother and the unfair and extreme rules of the compound which forced his banishment, Eve is determined to escape Compound Eleven. However, can Eve leave her family, friends, a new relationship with a boy named Wren, and all she’s ever known behind?
Eve is a well-layered and fascinating protagonist. Strong and vulnerable, certain and unsure, Eve has such depth. Taught from a very young age to be self-reliant, Eve has complicated relationships with her parents. Luckily, she has supportive friends and a new love interest to fill the void of an absentee family. Above all, Eve craves freedom and hopes that is the answer to her unhappiness and discontent. I love that she faces obstacles head-on, and her strength of character is prevalent throughout the story.
Excellent use of imagery and symbolism further stresses the smothered suffocation Eve feels living in the confines of Compound Eleven. It is a brutal and unforgiving caste system, especially for the people of the lower castes where violence, depravity, and suffering are a way of life. The author does a great job of detailing the ugliness of Eve’s life in the lower levels, which stands in stark contrast to Wren’s upper-level world.
Wren, Eve’s love interest, is an interesting character as well, and I’m hopeful we’ll learn more about him and his life before meeting Eve. He understands Eve well, and their relationship makes Eve reevaluate her prejudices, beliefs, and feelings about the upper castes. Other characters, Especially Eve’s close friends and enemies are dynamic additions to the story as well.
I enjoyed this engrossing YA dystopia. Issues like abuse, emotional abandonment, and unrequited love are explored throughout the story, as are themes of facing one’s fears, fighting against oppression and for equality, and rejecting corruptive power. Plus, there’s a forbidden romance, a ton of action, a shocking betrayal, compelling characters, and a surprising cliffhanger ending.
I can’t wait to find out what’s in store for Eve in future books in the series! Thanks so much to Netgalley, Entangled Teen, and the author for a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.
Escaping Eleven by Jerri Chisholm offers an interesting dystopian premise. While it had quite a few tropes similar to other dystopian books I have read, there were aspects that made it unique as well.
Overall, I enjoyed Chisholm’s writing style. The world-building was pretty decent for Compound Eleven, and I got a good feel for it.
However, the character building was somewhat lackluster. Eve was a frustrating character for me personally. Her inner monologue, her attitude, her secrets from her friends all grated on me throughout most of the book. Due to the aforementioned secrets, I felt the relationships with her friends as well as her relationship with Wren were underdeveloped.
Furthermore, I would have liked Wren’s perspective, but I’m always hoping for books with multiple POVs. I feel they add more depth and understanding to books, and I’m finding it to be rare that an author can fully satisfy me with a single perspective.
I was curious at the end to see what will happen next, (Yes, it is the first of a series. I should have known. Sigh.) so I may pick up the second when it comes out.
***I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advance Reader Copy generously provided by the publisher via NetGalley.***
Escaping Eleven is the thrilling beginning to a dystopian series that is wholly captivating, and feels slightly evocative of series like Divergent and The Hunger Games.
When the earth became uninhabitable, humankind went underground, forming compounds deep beneath the soil. Compound Eleven is hierarchal by floor, with each caste inhabiting a specific floor and a specific role in society. Eve Hamilton is a fighter. It’s the way of life on her floor. And she lives and fights as if it’s second nature. It isn’t until she enters the ring with a privileged boy from the top floor named Wren that her axis shifts. He destroys her in the ring, but out of it? He might be the one to help put her back together. It’s too bad that Eve has no intention of sticking around long enough to find out.
Jerri Chisholm creates strong protagonists and an immersive narrative arc in Escaping Eleven. The concept of this novel is interesting and unique in its scope and vision, but also feels uncomfortably prescient at times. Eve and Wren are interesting characters on their own, but they way that they interact with each other is also engrossing. The secondary characters feel well-sketched and add depth to the story. It’s a solid start to what I hope is a solid series. That being said, if a cliff hanger ending isn’t your thing, you might want to hold off on reading this until the whole series is published. But I thought that the way Chisholm ends this book is so effective, it’s worth reading right away.
In sum, if you love a good dystopian story you’re going to love Escaping Eleven.
Thank you to Entangled Teen and NetGalley for generously providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
I’m going to start with what I didn’t like about this novel…the writing. Don’t get me wrong, the story was well developed and engaging, but as I read it felt like I was reading a stilted conversation with disjointed thoughts. One sentence would contain proper speaking and contractions (examples NOT from the book: It is not fair the children don’t get a treat. The are very unfortunate and can’t understand what they did wrong. Won’t they regret being so poor when they are begging for treats?). Those examples may not seem cumbersome but in a book this length it was very distracting. It felt like the FMC, Eve, was stuttering in her thoughts. Almost like she was trying to be formal, which was odd.
Other than that, Escaping Eleven was a unique combination of The City of Ember, The 100, and Divergent.
After the Earth begins to heat up and suffocate humans, they turn to compounds underground. The wealthy funded them, so naturally they end up making up the upper “floors” of the compounds while the laborers make up the lower “floors.” There are clear distinctions in how members of society are treated from jobs to food rations. I really enjoyed the depth of explanation of the whole system. It was very easy to follow and very detailed.
Eve is a young fighter on the cusp of having to choose a job. After a fight with a young man, Wren, they begin a friendship that continues to uncover the differences between the floors and expectations and prejudices that flow deeply through the compound. Eve is dead set on leaving the compound and risking her life to go aboveground because she can’t submit to a way of life she doesn’t support. As she learns to trust Wren, a sweet romance blossoms.
With a great selection of side characters, a traumatic past, enemies around every corner, a vivid dystopian background, and amazing strength, Eve discovers what she needs and wants.
I am surprised the ending said it was Book 1, so I’m assuming it’s a HFN, to be continued type of story. The ending was AMAZING and if there is another book, I’ll be reading it!
ARC provided to me by the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.