Eden Rising

By: Andrew Cunningham

Narrated by: Greg Hernandez

Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

"The Earth died in less than a minute. Maybe that's an exaggeration. It's not like the planet ceased to exist altogether. It just seemed like it. Cities were reduced to rubble. Millions of people died that day. I've since been told that 95 percent of the Earth's human population was wiped out. I don't know if that's true - I mean, who can know that for sure? It's not like we still have any of the technology that we once used to determine such things. But I do know that it was almost empty of people - live ones, that is..."

Thus begins the journey of Ben and Lila, two ordinary teenagers forced to rise to extraordinary heights when faced with a world that has suddenly and inexplicably died. Dealing with the sorrow of all they have lost, but the love they have found in each other, they set off on an odyssey that will bring them to the limits of human endurance and face to face with the frailty of their very existence. From the extreme violence of many of the surviving humans toward one another, to a world physically falling apart at the seams, Ben and Lila are determined to make it through the devastation in their quest for a place to quietly share their life together. In the process, they have to become as violent as the world around them in order to survive, while struggling to hold onto the humanity that will keep them sane.

Eden Rising is a survival tale and a love story, but it is also a book that delves deeply into the human psyche to discover just how far we would go to survive, and how much inner strength can be found when things are at their absolute worst.

©2013 Andrew Cunningham (P)2020 Andrew Cunningham

Not for me!

I enjoy post-apocalyptic reads, but this seems written for young adults and pushes romance and religion.

Apocalypse Suspense

Good story line but a little bit predictable and some parts somewhat not believable such as these young “kids” learning to defend themselves in such a short time frame. But I really enjoyed the 7+ hours of Highway entertainment. Found ourselves taking the long way to get places just to listen in our car.

Foul

Seriously a story about teenagers is going to have the murder of dogs and people, torture and rape of a 15 year old? this is disgusting. sick.
There should be ratings on audible and this needs rated X. I am apalled

Great story terrible narration

Narrator sounded like a computer, no feelings put into the reading. If the next books have same narrator I will skip

Great storyline, but ...

Could have been more strongly written. Narration sounded like a robot. Just the type of story I like, though.

Terrible narration

This book could have used a good editor. The writing is to stiff. The narrator was awful.

So so awful on so many levels

The idea for the story and the characters had a lot of potential. I really had high hopes. The author missed so many opportunities to describe scenes and scenarios. There wasn’t enough detail given and not much vocabulary used. It was boring and predictable. I love this post apocalyptic genre and read and listen to a lot of it so I have a lot to compare this book with. The narration was horrible, one of the worst I’ve heard. One of the best things I have to say is that there was minimal cursing. I was appreciative of that. It was not the worst book I’ve ever read but it was pretty bad.

Horrible narration.

The reader is awful. He’s very dull and lackluster with no expression or inflection. He sounds as if he’s lecturing to a group of 12 year old boys.

Love this story

I really enjoyed the story line and the characters in this book, but the narrator was so stilted and lacking in the emotion of the characters it was much less enjoyable than it should have been. Would have been soooo much better with the right reader.

Great post apocalypse book

I chose to listen to this book after receiving a free audio copy. All opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased.

I’ve read quite a few post-apocalyptic books, and Eden Rising is one of my favorites. Don’t get me wrong, I like reading about zombies, but what happens in this book seems like something that could really happen. The explanation of how this apocalypse happened made sense, but it was also alarming.

Ben and Lila are strong and well-developed characters. They were so cute to begin with because Ben was trying to get the nerve to ask Lila on a date, and suddenly, they were the only ones alive as far as they knew. They quickly learned to work together and to lean on each other as they dealt with survival, and they soon found that they were deeply in love. Their love story is sweet on top of all of the death and horror that they have to face.

The narrator did a good job. His tone and pace were good, and he was able to express the characters’ emotions well.

I like the ending of Eden Rising for two reasons. First, I liked the ending. Second, and more importantly, it ended at a good point in the series without a cliffhanger. I’m getting ready to listen to the second book, Eden Lost, because I really want to know what’s ahead, but the author didn’t have to use a cliffhanger to make me want to get to the next book.