Nick is co-opted into helping Ellie judge humanity to decide whether they should be saved or the Earth "reset" by an alien race who is disturbed by how humans are poisoning their world. These two teens are sent back in time to prehistoric Africa to make this call, and if they do not deem humans worthy of saving, they are to murder the original Adam and Eve (not religious, just the ancestors of all humans). What a daunting task!

I wanted to read this book because of the unique premise and because I love time travel stories. I had a bit of trouble really connecting with Ellie, but the character development was solid. The story was told from Nick's POV so I felt like I got to know him a little bit better.

My absolute favorite part of the story was the world building! William Dietrich brought prehistoric Africa to life and made me fall in love with the beauty of it.

All in all, I enjoyed this book very much and would like to read more of William Dietrich's work.

5/5 stars.

The Murder of Adam and Eve by William Dietrich

217 Pages
Publisher: Burrows Publishing, AuthorBuzz
Release Date: October 1, 2014

Fiction, Sci Fi, Fantasy, Teens, Young Adult, Adventure

Nick Brynner goes to Fort Whitman, an abandoned fort on a Goat Island in Puget Sound. The area is restricted and anyone that has attempted to gain access was never seen again. As he searches the fort, he finds a tunnel with a glow at the end. At the end tunnel and sees a locked gate. It was easy for him to open since the key was hanging next to the lock. Next thing he knows he is back in the sunshine. Everything looks wrong. There are no people and animals are running wild. A teenage girl, Ellie, grabs him and pulls him away. He introduces him to an angel named Gabe. He is not really an angel. It is just the form he presents. He is really from the Xu race of beings. They are given in assignment. Find Adam and Eve. Everything is up to them. If they find them unworthy, the world we be reset, and another species will be in charge.

The book is fast paced, the characters are not really developed, and it is written in the first-person point of view. I like the resourcefulness that Nick shows while in ancient Africa. Ellie discusses how evolution created greed and technology that we have today. Together they have to work together and make decisions that will affect all beings. This is an exciting young adult adventure book.

I loved the premise of this story, the character development was spot-on. This was an enjoyable thrilling story that will engage the reader both emotionally and intellectually.

When Nick and Elly get picked by the alien race Xu and are assigned to determine if or not the human race is worth saving, Nick and Elly face a mortifying future ahead where they need to travel back in time to Africa and save the genetic founders of human race, Adam and Eve. While they struggle to adjust to prehistoric life, they come across various challenges to surmount to complete their mission. This was a very interesting read with an ambitious plot. Building elements of sci-fi, pre-historic dystopia, young adult life crisis, would all have been a mammoth task and Dietrich deftly manages it. My thanks to Dietrich, the publishers Burrows Publishing, and NetGalley for gifting me with a copy of this book.

Rating: 2.5 stars

For some reason it took me forever to read this ebook and I think it was because I just couldn't connect with the main characters. I think I also realized I don't like books about aliens, it just isn't my taste , which I did not know going into it. Also the ending didn't quite make sense to me, I thought it should have ended in a better way and not so assumed. The love story wasn't bad but it was very insta love , which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it just didn't rock well with me. It did have some good surprises throughout that I wasn't prepared for and I enjoyed the ride , so I just think it wasn't for me but that it was a good story that was written well. The action was keeping me on my toes, and yet once I put it down I didn't wanna pick it back up for some reason.

A time travel thriller to prehistoric Africa in which two teens must judge the fate of humanity by saving, or betraying, the ancestors of our species: the genetic “Adam” and “Eve.”

A forbidden island. An abandoned fort. A deserted village. A living gargoyle. And a time wormhole that catapults teen Nick Brynner and his companion Eleanor Terrell to prehistoric Africa to pass judgment on mankind.

They must find and protect – or condemn – our genetic forebears, a real-life “Adam” and “Eve” to either preserve or reset the future. Nick must choose between wilderness, civilization, love, and humanity.

An interesting plot line that takes Nick and Eleanor on a journey through time to make a decision that would affect the whole of humanity, it was well thought out and written with some interesting ideas and characters.

DNF
I just couldn't get into this book at all. I kept trying and trying but the book just couldn't keep my interest at all.

The Murder of Adam and Eve is a book that I should have thought twice about before I decided to download it from NetGalley. Mostly because I usually try to stay away from YA, especially if it is a love story. But then again the blurb on NetGalley don't give away that much of the story and I think that I was blinded by the interesting cover to really care that it's all about two teenagers that must save the earth.

Apparently an alien raise called Xu has decided that Nick Brynner and Eleanor Terrell is the ones that have to decide if the human race is worth saving, and they have to go back in time to Africa and save the original Adam and Eve. Not the Bible Adam and Eve, but out genetic forebears. So Nick and Ellie have to adjust to the prehistoric life and also decide if the human race is worth saving or if the planet is better off without the humans.

I won't lie, I had a damn hard time getting into the story, but I felt that the book was way too short for me to quit. There was just something about the storyline that just didn't work for me, two people had to go back to the past to decide if the humans were worth saving? The explanation to why the alien race just didn't didn't decide for us comes at the end of the book and sound quite reasonable in a way (they must have a logical reason for not doing everything by themselves you know), even though I found it a mostly ludicrous. I mean there was some test in the beginning of the book they had to go through before they got sent back in the past, why? Why just not sent them back? No, let's make them go through some teamwork exercises first.

Of course Nick falls in love with Ellie, it's a love story, no matter that the human race has to be saved, there is time for some romance on the savanna.

So why the two-star rating? I was quite sure it would not be as good to earn more than one star, but the ending was better than I expected, and also more surprising than I expected. I still find the idea of a chosen person or two saving the whole world by going back in time quite ludicrous. And, I'm amazed that they actually survived out there before they found "Adam and Eve".

But still I can see that it would appeal to younger people that likes reading about teenagers saving the world. Personally? I will think twice the next time I see a book with a nice looking cover!