Thank you to netgalley for the free ARC of this book. Eden is the story of two sisters who were abducted and physically abused as young teenagers by a man called "Larry," who said he was a friend of their dad's.

The book goes back and forth between the time they were abducted and the present. The two sisters, Hope and Eden, are living totally separate lives as adults. Hope is spending a good portion of her time trying to find Eden, who moved away without any communication with her family. Hope wants to inform Eden that Larry is coming up for parole, and to ask her if she''d want to testify.

The book is about Hope's search to find her older sister, who was totally unlikable, moody and wasn't ever very nice to Hope. Personally I couldn't understand why Hope had such strong feelings towards her sister since Eden was so mean to her.

I won't say any more but the book does come to some kind of resolution. I didn't love the book, hence the 3 stars, but it kept me reading until the end.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this book. On the one hand, it was well-written, had rounded characters, an okay-enough plot - but seriously, you didn't think to pick up a phone? You just hopped into a barely-running camper and went without even knowing where you were going? Who does that?! (To clarify - I can see not knowing where you're going if, for example, you're running away, or lost. But Hope actually had a goal - find Eden.) I thought this book was okay, but not exactly realistic. 3/5 stars.

Eden is a book written about trauma, dysfunctional families and how we continue to perpetuate that dysfunction as we go forward in our own lives. The book starts with Eden and Hope getting on the bus to visit their dad who is divorced from each of their mothers. Their father was to pick them up, but, instead Larry picks them up. We never know exactly what the crime is, except that kidnapping was for certain and rape may have occurred with Eden. The story then jumps to present time, twenty years later.

Eden has distanced herself from anyone who knew what happened to her on that tragic day twenty years ago. The reader meets Eden as a child but only know about adult Eden through others. I really liked that the writer did this, as it really made the story authentic and kept the reader off balance. It worked.

Hope is the narrator of the story and while a likeable character, dysfunctional in many ways. She is notified when Larry, their kidnapper, is up for parole. It is through this that Hope decides that it's time to find Eden who she hasn’t seen in years. Hope’s journey to find Eden and her own story.

This is a quiet, sad, but empowering story of how to overcome trauma and find oneself. I really enjoyed this book. A solid four stars for great writing and a novel story, told in a unique way.

My thanks to #NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

This is such a touching story about searching for someone you love and finding out about them and yourself along the way. Hope is searching for her sister Eden after decades of being separated and not speaking and this journey takes her across and back the United States in an old van and brings her back in contact with lots of people from her past.

Told in flashbacks between the trauma that started it all, the time in the middle, and the present we learn about Hope, Eden and why they haven't spoken in so long.

I really enjoyed this book and found it touching and thoughtful.

Hope is the protagonist of this new novel by award-winning writer, Andrea Kleine. Eden is the driving force behind the questions, the loneliness, and the unachievable success in Hope's life. Hope is a playwright with proper university credentials, starting out strong with a play production in London. Since then, she hasn't been able to move anything else into the art world.

Hope comes from Virginia, outside of Charlottesville, where she grew up with her half-sister, Eden. Their father divorced Hope's mother, and he and Eden's mother were never married. Dad is a writer and a professor, living an alternative life in the countryside southwest of Charlottesville. When the girls were growing up, they took the bus to their father's town every Friday after school where he picked them up. When Eden was sixteen and Hope was fourteen their dad didn't show up at the bus stop to get them. They wound up with someone named Larry who said he was a friend of their dad and he sent him to get them. Larry said the dad was having trouble with his camper van. This day was the beginning of the hell that both of them would live in for much of the rest of their lives.

It is never clear in the novel if either girl suffered a rape, but they were kept against their wills, tied up outside in only their underwear. Their escape isn't as important as what happened to them afterward. The dysfunctional family of one father, two mothers, and a stubborn Eden set all their lives on end. Eden went to a boarding school, and Hope never really saw her again.

The story moves twenty years forward to a turning point in the story and Hope's life. The D.A. wants to interview both of them as Larry, their abductor, is up for parole. Hope decides to try to find Eden to talk to her about what happened and see if she can help make a case against Larry.

The trip takes her from New York to California, searching for Eden, but in more significant ways, searching for what created a massive hole in her soul, one that no one and nothing seems able to repair. This was a difficult novel to process. Hope's lonely journey through life is painful to witness. Ms. Kleine's insightful portrait of real-life pain makes it an excellent story.

Thank you, NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the opportunity to read the e-ARC.

The publication date for Eden is July 10th 2018.

I was moved to tears, frustration, anger and impatience while reading Eden. For me that's a sign of good writing,
interesting characters and a plot that doesn't give everything away.

The story opens with Eden and Hope getting on the bus to visit their dad who is divorced from each of their mothers. They do this every other weekend. They arrive at the small bus station and wait for their father to show up. When the station closes they continue waiting outside. Larry arrives in a pickup and introduces himself as a friend of their father's and claims he was sent to drive them back to their dad's house. Hope, even though she is two years younger, is hesitant but agrees after Eden tells her to get in. The story segues to present time twenty years later.

This is really a study of dysfunctional families and how our family of origin can be a springboard for children to perpetuate that dysfunction in their own lives. Eden has distanced herself from anyone who knew what happened to her on that tragic day twenty years ago. We meet her as a child but only know about adult Eden through others.

Hope is a likeable character. She is notified when Larry is up for parole and told that she and her sister can speak during the parole hearing. Hope decides that it's time to find Eden. The remainder of the story is primarily about Hope's journey to find Eden and how it affects her.

This is a journey worth taking for the readers. As stated earlier the book is moving. I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for making this ARC available. This review is given voluntarily and is entirely my own opinion. #Eden#NetGalley

This was a tough one to read as it deals with the fallout of a trauma-based horrific crime committed on two sisters, Eden and Hope. Told from Hope's perspective, it vacillates between past and present as Hope is called on to testify as the accused may be paroled even as he is suspected of murder. Sister Eden has long since disappeared and has no desire to be found, their mother has just died from cancer, and their father deals with his own demons as his past plagues him. So although it's not a "feel-good" novel, it deals with heartfelt themes such as guilt, bitterness, redemption, and forgiveness. Does our past always determine our present? Can people "let go" in different ways or are we bound by our family ties forever? This novel will have you pondering these questions and more as it tugs at your heartstrings.

When they were teenagers, Hope and Eden were kidnapped by a man who claimed to be their father’s friend. They both physically came out of the woods, but they left something of themselves behind. In Andrea Kleine’s Eden, we follow Hope almost twenty years later as she tentatively goes on a quest to track down her sister, who went off the grid shortly after the kidnapping. It’s been years for Hope, her sister, and their parents, but they haven’t really moved on. The kidnapping derailed everyone’s lives. No one is healthy in this book, but Eden is not a catalog of mental illness so much as it explores the impossibility of “letting go” of trauma in the way that Hope’s friends and family constantly exhort her to do.

Hope is a struggling playwright in New York City at the beginning of the novel, when she gets a letter informing her that the man who kidnapped her and Eden years ago is up for parole. (This is really the cherry on top of a bad month because Hope’s mother had just died of lung cancer.) The local district attorney wants Hope and Eden to testify to make sure he stays in jail. The DA also suspects that the kidnapper murdered a girl shortly before he took Hope and Eden into the woods. If Hope and Eden testify, maybe the guy will be convicted of murder, too. So Hope halfheartedly goes home. She talks to her father, Eden’s mother, and anyone else she can find who remembers Eden.

I was astonished by the selfishness of the parents in Hope and Eden’s life. Suriya, Eden’s mother, took off when Eden was a child and lives a peripatetic life as a hippie at a series of communes and collectives. Hope and Eden’s father seems to be content to be a sad sack who castigates himself with his failings as a parent, so much so that others have to comfort him. Luce, who was the father’s girlfriend at the time, at least has the self-awareness to admit that she didn’t like being a stand-in mother. It’s little wonder that Eden left and Hope has become so closed off to others that she’s emotionally crippled.

Eden has the benefit of being a unique account of the aftermath of trauma. I’ve never seen anything like it. But just because this book is unique doesn’t necessarily make it enjoyable. I daresay this book will make readers angry because of the terribly self-absorbed parents. Hope clearly needed and still needs help, but most of the people in her life are incapable of providing that help. That said, how does one help someone who goes through what Hope and Eden did? The only thing we can say for sure is that you can’t just tell them to “move on” and “let go.”

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration. It will be released 10 July 2018.

This novel is about Hope, a struggling playwright, and her journey to find her estranged sister, Eden. What she ends up finding is closure and acceptance. Hope and Eden were kidnapped as teenagers and, fortunately, were able to escape with their lives. It was shortly after the kidnapping that Eden becomes estranged from her family.
There seemed to be a significant disconnect between the story being told and the actual plot. This made for a very choppy reading experience. The characters in this novel were unoriginal, cliché and entirely forgettable.
This one just didn’t work for me.

An interesting look at trauma, and the ways it continues to haunt us throughout our lives. Eden of the title is the sister of Hope, our narrator, and they went through an ordeal at the hands of a strange man as teenagers. Eden shuts out her family, while Hope just shuts out the abduction. This is not a thriller, or a mystery, but has mysterious elements. I read another reader's review and she mentioned it was a quiet book, I agree with that.

I think of this type of book as literary suspense. Something shocking happened but the book is really about dealing with it vs the actual event. Compelling concept and story.

Do you ever fully heal from a violent attack in your youth? How many additional lives are affected for all the years ahead when something bad happens to someone good? We read about these crimes much too often in today’s news but never stop to document the long-term negative effects, the ripple effects of one bad man’s actions.
That’s exactly what Andrea Kleine attempts to portray in this sad but engrossing novel about two sisters who have grown up and moved away from a horrible kidnapping that they suffered as young teens.
Hope and Eden are exactly like thousands of families today; the kids visit between mom and dad based on the divorce settlement’s terms. During one of these transfers, an oversight opens the window of opportunity for a sick and twisted child molester. Eden and Hope each react in very distinctive ways; both understandable, both so sad and deeply scarred.
Jump years ahead, and Hope wants to find Eden and ask for her assistance to keep the attacker behind bars; his parole hearing is coming up. The day to day movements of Hope and the unraveling trail she’s following that Eden left behind both scream of grown children in pain who never healed, never received the help they needed, and never had a chance at a healthy childhood, much less a normal adulthood.
This is a sobering read and so real and applicable in today’s world. It’s sad but needed to be written and read. I highly recommend this for people who attempt to interpret the cause and effects of evil people in our societies.
(I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review. Thank you to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for making it available.)

I truly enjoyed reading Eden by Andrea Kleine. Beautifully written, enthralling story about two sisters who experienced a traumatic childhood event. As one of two daughters in my family, I very much related to this story, and how events in our lives can be perceived and can impact us all differently. The themes are beautiful on a human level. I loved getting to know the characters and had a hard time putting it down. A great read.

This book starts out with the story of two sisters Eden and Hope who are teenagers. The travel by bus every other weekend to visit their dad who gives them bus fare in the form of a coupon from the back of a Cheerios box..

One Friday night their father is late in meeting them and after several hours a man comes in a truck and says he's friend of their father's 'and their father's car broke down and he was sent to get them and bring them to him..

After they're driving for awhile he takes them to his house and drugs them. When they wake up they are in the woods dressed only in their underwear and tied to trees..

Hope manages to untie herself and then frees her sister and they both run from the woods until they reach a town.

Hope remains at home and Eden goes off to boarding school and later she lives in a commune.

When they are 36 their mother dies and Hope finds a letter in her mother's belongings that informs her their kidnapper will be coming up for parole (he was charged with the murder of another teenage girl which happened two years prior to their kidnapping.

Most of the book is about Hope's life and her search for Eden.

You only learn about what happened to them in pieces and only get the full story towards the end..

I thought this book was boring and rambling. I had thought it was going to be about Hope and Eden and their lives together after the kidnapping but it wasn't except for very briefly.

Very disappointing.

This was a quiet book that in many ways leads you on the same journey as the main character Hope-- wandering from quiet, quirky encounter to encounter as she attempts to put together the puzzle pieces and understand both herself and her sister Eden, whom she hopes to locate and reconnect with.

I think the main focus of this book is on trauma and identity. How did a traumatic incident from the past shape these two women and how has it affected their ability (or really more inability) to forge meaningful connections and relationships with others?

Throughout the book, Eden remains enigmatic. If you're looking for answers about what exactly happened to her, who she is now, and why she's chosen to abandon her relationships with her family, (er...spoiler alert?) you won't really find them in this book. Ultimately it's Hope's story, and it's an interesting one at that. But I suspect people in search of gripping action, dramatic face-offs, and tidy endings will find it disappointing. That's a shame, because it's quite a compelling book in its quiet way.

Thanks to the author and NetGalley for granting me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Net Galley for the free ARC.
Haunting book about grown up sisters who survived a bizarre kidnapping and each dealt with getting over the trauma in a different way. Eden the commune girl and Hope the struggling artist.

This was just an okay book for me. That said, you really do feel Hope's pain and her struggles (with herself, friends, and family). Readings about her trauma in direct contrast to her memories of her sister and family was hard, but it was incredibly well written.

The characterizations supercharged this quite literary telling of one woman's plight to lay to rest a traumatic incident, Other family members and acquaintances offer sharp contrasts in attitude to the needs and memories of Hope. I wished for more plot development; what was offered was well-crafted, though.

A wonderful story of two sisters and the directions their lives took after sharing a traumatizing event in their youth. Once I got into the story, I had a hard time putting it down! I enjoyed the way the book was structured, alternating between present day and flashbacks. Would highly recommend for fans of literary fiction and book discussion groups. I will definitely be ordering for my public library.