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Eos Dawn #1
Eos
How far would you go for freedom? After a world war left the country in ruins, the survivors regrouped, creating four cities. With the population lower than ever, the prison system became impossible to maintain, so the city officials developed the Exile Town System… Avid—a literal dump for the thieves, Bellicose—caverns for the violent, Clamorite—mountains for the unruly, Delaisse—factories for the addicts and vandals, and Equivox—a lake for the liars. When a young thief learns about the Skeleton Key, a device that can be used to unlock anything, she can’t help but to go after it. But there’s a catch—in order to unlock the box containing it, she needs a key from each of the exile towns, which turn out to be far more dangerous than she could have imagined.
340 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 10, 2019
11 people are currently reading
65 people want to read
About the author
Jen Guberman
9 books37 followersJen Guberman is the author of Deathriser of Darkwood, Thieves of Joy, and the Eos Dawn Trilogy. She's not a New York Times Bestseller and she has no critical acclaims, but her mom thinks her books are pretty good.
She graduated from Gardner-Webb University in December 2017 with her BA in Communications and with membership in Alpha Chi, Lambda Pi Eta, and Pi Delta Phi honor societies.
She loves watching psychological thrillers, playing video games, making jewelry, and playing with design ideas on Photoshop.
Jen lives in Huntersville, North Carolina, with her husband and their two cats.
She graduated from Gardner-Webb University in December 2017 with her BA in Communications and with membership in Alpha Chi, Lambda Pi Eta, and Pi Delta Phi honor societies.
She loves watching psychological thrillers, playing video games, making jewelry, and playing with design ideas on Photoshop.
Jen lives in Huntersville, North Carolina, with her husband and their two cats.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
April 2, 2016
Eos is an enjoyable book from start to finish. It is full of adventure and has many twists and turns that keep the reader thinking, wondering, and turning the pages.
The main character has many layers. She has positive traits such as she is loyal, trusting and courageous, but also has flaws; she is deceptive and not very emotional.
The characters mesh well creating not just a story with an intriguing plot, but also one in which a reader wants to follow the characters and see what will happen to them next...some characters are lovable, some not so much, but you can't wait to see what they are up to!
I recommend this book to anyone interested in scifi, dystopian society, or any type of action adventure books. A great read!
The main character has many layers. She has positive traits such as she is loyal, trusting and courageous, but also has flaws; she is deceptive and not very emotional.
The characters mesh well creating not just a story with an intriguing plot, but also one in which a reader wants to follow the characters and see what will happen to them next...some characters are lovable, some not so much, but you can't wait to see what they are up to!
I recommend this book to anyone interested in scifi, dystopian society, or any type of action adventure books. A great read!
August 12, 2020
The right amount of suspense, adventure, fear of the unknown, lots of lying and fighting, and a splash of romance thrown in to make an excellent first book for the author. All of that combined with post apocalyptic war vibes in a well thought out world, the book offers a different take on a society separated into different cities for different crimes The entire time, you'll find yourself questioning who is on Eos' side or in it for themselves. And it will leaving you excited for the next book in the series. Just like I am. On to book 2!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 6, 2020
Really enjoyed this! I'm a huge fan of Young Adult Dystopian novels (Hunger Games, Legend, Divergent etc..) and this perfectly satiated my craving for this genre! I took a chance with Jen when I purchased Eos meeting her for the first time at the Carolina Renaissance Fair. I though the ending wrapped things up perfectly and was a very inspiring trilogy. Highly recommend!
March 17, 2017
This book was outstanding. The story grabbed my attention right from the very start. I cared about the lead character and felt the highs, lows, victories and defeats. When I finished the story I was ready to pick up book number two in the series right away. I recommend this book to everyone looking for an adventure containing twists, suspense, and emotion. Great read!
February 7, 2021
This book was a pleasant surprise and fulfilled my desire for a good dystopian story! Characters were unique and I loved the smidge of romance that the author sprinkles into the story.
Lots of mystery with some fun actin scenes that kept me turning pages. A very good debut and I look forward to reading the rest of the series!
Lots of mystery with some fun actin scenes that kept me turning pages. A very good debut and I look forward to reading the rest of the series!
January 23, 2017
Generally speaking, I'm not exactly a bookworm, but this book was addictive. The plot line is full of action and intrigue, and the settings are described in a way that puts you into the story. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book because the content was enthralling and it was a smooth read. It is a very well thought out story that isn't bogged down by weighty, overstated descriptions and needless tangents. The flow of the story is quite natural, and the universe represented within is vivid and imaginative. This book well deserves all 5 stars!
August 13, 2021
I’m torn when it comes to characterising this book as a young adult dystopian sci-fi in the vein of Maze Runner and The Hunger Games, but those were the stories I was reminded of as I was reading. That’s just a risk of this subgenre, and I know it will read as a point in favour to some and a point against to others. Personally, even though I wouldn’t say I’m a fan of young adult dystopian sci-fi, it’s solid entertainment and Eos Dawn can easily stand next to Katniss Whatsherface without feeling self-conscious.
And just for the record, I didn’t hate the Hunger Games series as I read it. It was good escapist fun and said some interesting things about humanity. Eos, in my opinion, might say even more (potentially) – and that’s pretty darn cool. I’d watch movies of this, and I’d definitely snoot about how I read the book first, and the book is better. Also I read it before it was cool.
Anyway, let’s get into the meat a bit more.
Eos tells the story of a post-cataclysmic-war world where the known population is restricted to a handful of cities because of the radiation and other devastation. Travel between cities is strictly controlled, and society frighteningly regulated. Any threats to this regulated existence, from violent crime to just kind of being a sassmouth, are neatly removed and placed in “exile towns” according to their category of non-conformity. This is a rather cool concept and makes for a nice self-contained story map (literally) with lots of potential for expansion. And the names of the exile towns are clever.
Eos Dawn is, at least on initial impression, an extraordinarily gullible and naïve thief who puts up with people being shits to her at least three more times than she should at the outset. And she’s given one, what, half-hour job to do each day and somehow forgets to do it after two days? Fuck me. But here’s the thing: that’s a very human and relatable set of failings (and it doesn’t really matter, since we don’t get bogged down in that bullshit pseudo-normal nine-to-five thing anyway). I’m just saying, it’s not hard to water a garden if that’s the one thing you have to do the entire day. I just – fine. Bygones. Moving on.
Eos isn’t your typical hero, who after an obligatory period of angst immediately sets about righting wrongs and taking names. No, Eos is a big dumb-dumb who isn’t really great at anything, and even a couple of learning curves and a training montage later, she’s still getting herself needled with knockout drugs (which seem to be everywhere, but are we even surprised? This is an authoritarian Everybody Be Nice dystopia after all). Everything she does is kind of seat-of-the-pants and she doesn’t seem to get bitter and broody about it. She just sighs and throws up her hands and goes you see what I have to deal with here? Her quest isn’t for justice and unity or anything else. It just seems like something she’s doing because it’s slightly more interesting than watering the goddamn – fine.
Yeah, I thought it was a fun read. There are some clumsy segments of dialogue and inserted thought-statements explaining what is going on in the story – they looked to be added in to clarify what had just happened in case the reader missed it, and in some cases they’re necessary because the scene was misleading, and in some cases they’re not necessary and serve to pull the reader out of the moment … but none of it ultimately interferes with the simple and highly imaginative narrative and setting.
Sure, there’s a few issues with the world Guberman has created here. It all seems very flimsy and prone to security breaches, and with all the apparent malcontents and people with … let’s be generous and call them skills … outside in the exile towns, it’s hard to believe they haven’t just busted out and overthrown the cities before now. Maybe the second and third books in the trilogy go into more detail about this. The nature of the war that destroyed everything is also unexplored, but that’s not a deal-breaker. We only need to know it happened. It wiped out things like birds and rabbits, but the hunting teams still bring in game … I’m not certain about that, but eh. It all works. The Fabian set-up and pay-off, once we get to it, seemed a little too miraculous to me. Some more earning of that coincidence would have been nice, but the ultimate ending of that thread helped me get over it.
And what’s with the daggers? They definitely mean something and we need to know.
As I said, this is the first book in a trilogy – it had a nice cliffhanger ending, leaving the reader all too ready to one-click purchase the next instalment for the ol’ kindle, but did not leave the first book wanting for a proper beginning, middle and end. I like the symmetry of the click … click storytelling device.
So what else have we got?
Sex-o-meter
Solid and rather innocent young adult fare, barring the occasional assault-and-near-rape one should probably expect when detailing a journey through dystopian penal settlements populated almost entirely by specific types of violent criminals. Hey, at least there wasn’t a Fiddlerville[1]. I award Eos twelve and a half shades of grey out of a possible you know the fuck how many shades don’t make me say it.
Gore-o-meter
Not much violence in this story – a throat-slashing, a gut-stabbing and a head-on-floor bashing, along with some random fights and stuff … okay I guess it had its share of gore but I’m aware that we probably have some grimdark still to come in this contest so I’m leaving myself space to expand. Two flesh-gobbets out of a possible five.
WTF-o-meter
How did this whole world happen? What was the nature of the war and is there anything left outside the (apparently) inhospitable nuclear wastelands? How are they feeding people now that Eos stopped watering the carrots (no I will not let this go)? How did they even start with the truck routes and lockup system and where are the rations coming from? Are they people? Is the mystery meat people? Why all the fuss over a key that can open stuff that can generally be opened in other ways? What are we missing from this story’s past? There’s a lot of WTF here, to be sure, but it’s mostly unanswered-questions WTF rather than the higher-grade uncut surreal WTF I need in my veins. Nevertheless, I’ll give it a polar bear dressed up as The Fonz out of a possible The Fonz dressed up as a polar bear.
My Final Verdict
Eos was an enjoyable read and was a great introduction to a fascinating and troubling world where society comes at the cost of all the things that make society robust and vibrant (but I mean, yeah, if people could stop stealing and killing, that’d be nice). A little more exploration of the different interwoven threads – the thieves who steal out of poverty and oppression, the noise polluters who are just speaking out against injustice, the privileged joy-riders who just got kicked out because therapy is hard – might have been nice to see, but there’s a lot going on under the surface. I remain uncertain just how much of a video game MacGuffin the assorted keys and boxes and the final goal were, but it was fun to watch it unfold. Solid three stars on the Amazon / Goodreads scale.
[1] For … people who play the violin badly. What? What did you think I was going to suggest? Yeesh.
And just for the record, I didn’t hate the Hunger Games series as I read it. It was good escapist fun and said some interesting things about humanity. Eos, in my opinion, might say even more (potentially) – and that’s pretty darn cool. I’d watch movies of this, and I’d definitely snoot about how I read the book first, and the book is better. Also I read it before it was cool.
Anyway, let’s get into the meat a bit more.
Eos tells the story of a post-cataclysmic-war world where the known population is restricted to a handful of cities because of the radiation and other devastation. Travel between cities is strictly controlled, and society frighteningly regulated. Any threats to this regulated existence, from violent crime to just kind of being a sassmouth, are neatly removed and placed in “exile towns” according to their category of non-conformity. This is a rather cool concept and makes for a nice self-contained story map (literally) with lots of potential for expansion. And the names of the exile towns are clever.
Eos Dawn is, at least on initial impression, an extraordinarily gullible and naïve thief who puts up with people being shits to her at least three more times than she should at the outset. And she’s given one, what, half-hour job to do each day and somehow forgets to do it after two days? Fuck me. But here’s the thing: that’s a very human and relatable set of failings (and it doesn’t really matter, since we don’t get bogged down in that bullshit pseudo-normal nine-to-five thing anyway). I’m just saying, it’s not hard to water a garden if that’s the one thing you have to do the entire day. I just – fine. Bygones. Moving on.
Eos isn’t your typical hero, who after an obligatory period of angst immediately sets about righting wrongs and taking names. No, Eos is a big dumb-dumb who isn’t really great at anything, and even a couple of learning curves and a training montage later, she’s still getting herself needled with knockout drugs (which seem to be everywhere, but are we even surprised? This is an authoritarian Everybody Be Nice dystopia after all). Everything she does is kind of seat-of-the-pants and she doesn’t seem to get bitter and broody about it. She just sighs and throws up her hands and goes you see what I have to deal with here? Her quest isn’t for justice and unity or anything else. It just seems like something she’s doing because it’s slightly more interesting than watering the goddamn – fine.
Yeah, I thought it was a fun read. There are some clumsy segments of dialogue and inserted thought-statements explaining what is going on in the story – they looked to be added in to clarify what had just happened in case the reader missed it, and in some cases they’re necessary because the scene was misleading, and in some cases they’re not necessary and serve to pull the reader out of the moment … but none of it ultimately interferes with the simple and highly imaginative narrative and setting.
Sure, there’s a few issues with the world Guberman has created here. It all seems very flimsy and prone to security breaches, and with all the apparent malcontents and people with … let’s be generous and call them skills … outside in the exile towns, it’s hard to believe they haven’t just busted out and overthrown the cities before now. Maybe the second and third books in the trilogy go into more detail about this. The nature of the war that destroyed everything is also unexplored, but that’s not a deal-breaker. We only need to know it happened. It wiped out things like birds and rabbits, but the hunting teams still bring in game … I’m not certain about that, but eh. It all works. The Fabian set-up and pay-off, once we get to it, seemed a little too miraculous to me. Some more earning of that coincidence would have been nice, but the ultimate ending of that thread helped me get over it.
And what’s with the daggers? They definitely mean something and we need to know.
As I said, this is the first book in a trilogy – it had a nice cliffhanger ending, leaving the reader all too ready to one-click purchase the next instalment for the ol’ kindle, but did not leave the first book wanting for a proper beginning, middle and end. I like the symmetry of the click … click storytelling device.
So what else have we got?
Sex-o-meter
Solid and rather innocent young adult fare, barring the occasional assault-and-near-rape one should probably expect when detailing a journey through dystopian penal settlements populated almost entirely by specific types of violent criminals. Hey, at least there wasn’t a Fiddlerville[1]. I award Eos twelve and a half shades of grey out of a possible you know the fuck how many shades don’t make me say it.
Gore-o-meter
Not much violence in this story – a throat-slashing, a gut-stabbing and a head-on-floor bashing, along with some random fights and stuff … okay I guess it had its share of gore but I’m aware that we probably have some grimdark still to come in this contest so I’m leaving myself space to expand. Two flesh-gobbets out of a possible five.
WTF-o-meter
How did this whole world happen? What was the nature of the war and is there anything left outside the (apparently) inhospitable nuclear wastelands? How are they feeding people now that Eos stopped watering the carrots (no I will not let this go)? How did they even start with the truck routes and lockup system and where are the rations coming from? Are they people? Is the mystery meat people? Why all the fuss over a key that can open stuff that can generally be opened in other ways? What are we missing from this story’s past? There’s a lot of WTF here, to be sure, but it’s mostly unanswered-questions WTF rather than the higher-grade uncut surreal WTF I need in my veins. Nevertheless, I’ll give it a polar bear dressed up as The Fonz out of a possible The Fonz dressed up as a polar bear.
My Final Verdict
Eos was an enjoyable read and was a great introduction to a fascinating and troubling world where society comes at the cost of all the things that make society robust and vibrant (but I mean, yeah, if people could stop stealing and killing, that’d be nice). A little more exploration of the different interwoven threads – the thieves who steal out of poverty and oppression, the noise polluters who are just speaking out against injustice, the privileged joy-riders who just got kicked out because therapy is hard – might have been nice to see, but there’s a lot going on under the surface. I remain uncertain just how much of a video game MacGuffin the assorted keys and boxes and the final goal were, but it was fun to watch it unfold. Solid three stars on the Amazon / Goodreads scale.
[1] For … people who play the violin badly. What? What did you think I was going to suggest? Yeesh.
January 11, 2020
Engaging throughout, to the point where I felt compelled to enjoy it in an afternoon. I especially enjoyed the worldbuilding, which sets up the groundwork rules and then lets the story unfold as the characters take over.
May 24, 2016
The book is interesting enough to make someone keep turning the pages. There are so may plot twists and so many episodes that occur in one chapter, there is no question in wanting to find out what happens in the next chapter. The book adventures in a way that nobody's ever going to guess. Unlike the characters who are shaped throughout situations in most adventurous novels, the characters are the ones who shape the situation in this book in order to reach what they aim for. What happens to the characters are so interesting, curiosity keeps turning the pages to what will happen next as they jump into situations that are unpredictable.
July 22, 2016
Great book, start to finish. The characters grab you quickly and hold you throughout the whole book. This is a look into what our future could be like. Looking forward to the next chapter in the series.
March 19, 2023
Did not finish - page 112 of 329
YA and I just couldn't identify with the main character. Getting too old I guess (over 50), but also, the main character is just not likeable, nor have I developed sympathy with any of the other characters and I'm over a third of the way in. Time to give it up and switch to other books I'm more interested in reading.
Editing comment
Connection with a main character can be done in one of five ways - likeable, sympathy, jeopardy, power, or humor. Two of these traits need to be introduced before an undesirable trait is introduced for the point of view (POV) character to draw a reader in. In this case, the POV is shown to be an impulsive, lazy, backstabbing thief before the connection with the reader is established.
YA and I just couldn't identify with the main character. Getting too old I guess (over 50), but also, the main character is just not likeable, nor have I developed sympathy with any of the other characters and I'm over a third of the way in. Time to give it up and switch to other books I'm more interested in reading.
Editing comment
Connection with a main character can be done in one of five ways - likeable, sympathy, jeopardy, power, or humor. Two of these traits need to be introduced before an undesirable trait is introduced for the point of view (POV) character to draw a reader in. In this case, the POV is shown to be an impulsive, lazy, backstabbing thief before the connection with the reader is established.
June 21, 2024
I went to school with the author, so I may be biased lol. But after three years of saying I was going to read Eos, and then two months of not reading the book because of work, I finally sat down and finished it. It’s a very well written, young adult, dystopian story, that has fun characters, action, romance, and makes you feel a range of emotions. I found myself getting attached to the characters, even tearing up following an emotional scene toward the end. A quick read, but a good one, and I can’t wait to read the next installment
February 6, 2023
Intriguing read
What a journey Eos went on! This book had me enthralled in what was going to happen next. Who were really bad guys, and good guys- some surprises. I definitely enjoyed it!
What a journey Eos went on! This book had me enthralled in what was going to happen next. Who were really bad guys, and good guys- some surprises. I definitely enjoyed it!
March 28, 2022
This book is all about the characters! The story line is interesting as well with some twists and excellent world building but the characters are why I kept picking this book up!
May 25, 2024
This isn’t normally the type of book I would read but wanted to give it a try. After a couple of chapters, I didn’t want to put it down. I can’t wait to read the next book.
July 28, 2025
good story but impossible tasks happen to easily
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews