Havah

Havah, by Tosca Lee is an unique retelling of the Creation story told from the perspective of Eve. The story relates Eve, or Havah's awakening, her joy in the garden and with the adam, her temptation and fall, her travails outside the garden with Adam, and more. Havah experiences pain, loss, and death, and the reader has no choice but to be swept away in the emotion of her experiences. The death of Havel (Abel) and the loss of Kavin (Cain) are heart wrenching, and the reader is left with an ache for the pain of adam and Havah during their loss and a deep sympathy for Kavain that one would never feel before.

I thought the novel was well written, full of beautiful words and phrases. The characters were well rounded and very sympathetic. It was easy to relate to their struggles. I thought some of Tosca Lee's imaginings of life after Creation were very good and helpful to understand such lost lives without God. I wished there had been more mention of God in the middle and end of the book, and I thought she might have been too easy in her portrayal of Cain and his actions, but I was pleased with the book and most of the author's choices for how to portray her characters made sense. Havah was a beautiful book, but it does leave one with a sense of sadness because all ends without the forgiveness of God's Son, Havah's seed.