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    Eden West
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    Eden West
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    Eden West
    Audiobook7 hours

    Eden West

    Written by Pete Hautman

    Narrated by Todd Haberkorn

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Tackling faith, doubt, and transformation, National Book Award winner Pete Hautman explores a boy's unraveling allegiance to an insular cult.

    A world within a world.…

    Seven square miles of paradise, surrounded by an eight-foot chain-link fence: this is Nodd, the land of the Grace. It is all seventeen-year-old Jacob knows. Beyond the fence lies the World, a wicked, terrible place, doomed to destruction. When the Archangel Zerachiel descends from Heaven, only the Grace will be spared the horrors of the apocalypse.

    But something is rotten in paradise. A wolf invades Nodd, slaughtering the Grace's sheep. A new boy arrives from outside, and his scorn and disdain threaten to tarnish Jacob's contentment. Then, while patrolling the borders of Nodd, Jacob meets Lynna, a girl from the adjoining ranch, who tempts him to sample the forbidden Worldly pleasures that lie beyond the fence. Jacob's faith, his devotion, and his grip on reality are tested as his feelings for Lynna blossom into something greater, and the End Days grow ever closer.

    Eden West is the story of two worlds, two hearts, the power of faith, and the resilience of the human spirit.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateApr 14, 2015
    ISBN9781501221705
    Unavailable
    Eden West
    Author

    Pete Hautman

    Pete Hautman is the author of National Book Award–winning novel Godless, Sweetblood, Hole in the Sky, Stone Cold, The Flinkwater Factor, The Forgetting Machine, and Mr. Was, which was nominated for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America, as well as several adult novels. He lives in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Visit him at PeteHautman.com.  

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    Reviews for Eden West

    3.5/5

    25 ratings11 reviews

    What did you think?

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    • 4/5
      This was a tough book to read, kind of like watching a car accident! This young boy narrator has been raised in a fairly crazy Montana cult, but he thinks his life is totally normal. You can't help but cringe reading it, feeling all of the misinformation and confusion this young man has. The book is a discovery of the wider world, as he befriends a girl on a neighboring farm and a boy brought to the cult against his will. Fascinating, and great writing.
    • 4/5
      Jacob lives in Nodd with the rest of the Grace. They are a small group trying to live a holy life away from worldly things under the leadership of the charismatic Father Grace. But the world intrudes on Nodd, in the shape of a girl from the ranch next door and a new group of disciples, not all of whom are there willingly.
    • 4/5
      Seventeen year old Jacob lives in the American West with his mother and father, on a compound. They share the land and the chores with a small group of other like-minded people that believe that they are living in a godly manner. The remote pasture land is an ideal place to live, with very little contact with the outside world. The downside is that life is very prescribed, with gender based roles and strict conformance to the rules. What is Jacob to think when he begins to question the rules? Open discussion of ideas is strongly discouraged and the answers are unclear, especially those regarding faith.
    • 3/5
      Eden West is the story of Jacob, a young man growing up in a religious community, actually a cult, in Montana. Jacob is 17 and throughout the book he expresses and experiences doubts about his life in this small community. I thought the book was an interesting inside view of what it is like to grow up in a cult. Jacob is thoroughly convinced that what he has been taught is the only way to be saved until he meets Lynna, an outsider, who opens up his eyes to other ways of life. Once Jacob realizes that the world outside might not be as evil as he has been led to believe and the world inside might not be as pure as he has always believed, he is conflicted about what is right and what is wrong. He begins to grow up and learn that he can make his own choices. My main problem with the book is that I don't think it went far enough, there was a certain lack of passion in all of the characters. Even Jacob who the reader gets to know the best seems a bit wooden and two dimensional, I had a hard time believing anything he said or did because it seemed to lack conviction. The descriptions of the community and the cult rules and way of life were very well detailed but I wish more time had been spent on making the characters more human and believable. I received a copy of this book from the early reviewer program.
    • 3/5
      For seventeen year old Jacob, life is fairly simply. From the age of five he has lived in a closed society in the heart of Montana. He has few and vague memories of life outside - before his parents found the Grace and brought him here. He was only five. Food, clothing, security, support, and rules all come from the land and the words of the Grace. Then the world of Jacob is rocked by two from the outside world - a new member who does not want to be there - another seventeen year old boy, Tobias and a sixteen year girl, Lynna, who lives with her father on the ranch within which the Grace compound is found. Both question Jacob - Tobias is angry and spiteful, Lynna is curious and caring. Eden West follows the journey Jacob takes in this seventeenth year of his life - physical, mental - as he arrives at his eighteenth year, when he is of age. I was impressed with Jacob's maturity, ability to think for himself, which is an unusual quality given to cult members in other stories. I liked the story but I wanted more, everything that happens is on a continuum with no emotional ups and downs to pull the reader in. Even when Jacob is face to face with a lone wolf who has already decimated part of their sheep herd, there is no page turning - heart pounding - emotional wrench to give the reader a reason to deeply care.
    • 5/5
      What's the difference between a cult and a religion? Mostly time, I think, but sheer numbers probably have something to do with it. Hautman manages to give a balanced and fair report on life within a tiny religious community in the West. Jacob meets a girl from the outside world, Lynnie, and gains perspective, and she, too, learns. Jacob's relationship with his parents is nuanced. Every religion has elements that sound bizarre to outsiders, but also provides something, perhaps many things, to its adherents. It's kind of amazing, really, that the book never relies on simplistic reactions. Overall it is a book about what individuals need from their communities, that transcends any specific belief issues.

      Library copy
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed this story and how the author chose to tell it from a teenager's point of view. I thought the story was slow to start when it was just Jacob and his feelings about life in Nodd (a cult his parents moved their family to). He seemed a little too niave for me about just accepting and believing everything he was told. When Lynna and Tobias enter the picture and he starts questioning and thinking about life and the world as he knows it, the story becomes more interesting and believable to me. I think it would make a good book for discussion amongst teens and/or adults.
    • 4/5
      I received this ARC from Candlewick Press in exchange for an honest review.Almost as soon as I started reading this book, I was hooked. I had just finished reading Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer and there seemed to be so many similarities between fundamentalist Mormons and the Grace. Father Grace, the founder of this religion, grew up in the Mormon faith and has three wives. This book felt so real. The way Jacob struggled with his faith and temptations could have been anyone on the planet who goes through the same thing with their own religion. Despite growing up in this place for 12 years, Jacob begins to become his own person first with the introduction of Tobias to Nodd and then with meeting Lynna. I thought that this was a very eye opening look at what might be going on in the minds of those who believe wholeheartedly in a religion or cult. I could not put this book down. I would definitely recommend this book to family and friends.
    • 4/5
      Eden West, by Pete Hautman, is set in a religious commune in Montana during present day. It’s narrated by Brother Jacob - a young man who has “seventeen summers”, who has known only this world, and whose faith, dedication and hard work come easily to him… Until a difficult winter test Jacob and the entire congregation. I enjoyed the simplicity of the language and Jacob’s point of view the most. Hautman also did an excellent job bringing the characters to life and showing their progression. The storyline was a bit predictable, but I enjoyed it all the same. I feel like the religious commune/cult is becoming more of a trend in Young Adult Literature. I’m looking forward to seeing what else will be published this year.
    • 4/5
      *Library Thing Early Review*I have to start by admitting that this book was not quite what I expected after reading the summary. I’m not really sure why, because the book delivers on everything the summary promises, but somehow I anticipated something a little more otherworldly and dystopian. What Hautman delivers is the dystopian otherworldliness of a modern day religious compound. Seventeen-year old Brother Jacob is a member of the Grace living in Nodd, a compound sandwiched between the “godless” Fort Landreau Indian Reservation and the Rocking K Ranch in Minnesota. The Grace believe that the world is nothing more than breeding grounds for sin and temptation, and thus they have fenced off their 12-square miles of Paradise in an attempt to protect themselves against evil and create the second Garden of Eden. All Worldly materials and ideals are rejected in order to keep their souls pure for the coming of the Ark and the archangel Zerachiel. The result creates an image much like Benedictine monks in Amish Country.For Jacob, who has lived in Nodd for as long as he can remember, the lifestyle of faith and hard work are all that he knows and come to him as easy as breath, and he confidently and contentedly awaits the End Days. However, a particularly harsh winter presents the Brothers and Sisters with their toughest tests of faith yet, and their numbers begin to dwindle.Jacob finds himself tempted by the Worldly innovations of the blonde cowgirl on the neighboring ranch. (It’s the innovations, I swear. Okay, it’s a little bit her body, too, but hey, she’s pretty.)A ne’er-do-well boy arrives with his mother and pregnant sister, claiming to be converts. After all, what else would a vagrant pack of devout converts look like?Local law enforcement informs the Grace that they will be touring the facilities, and returns an envelope that looks curiously to be full of cash. It’s totally legit.The foodstuffs are diminishing, the Grace are becoming as irritable as the crab tree they worship, and the pot crops have come in exceptionally and disappointingly acrid. And of course, an allegorical wolf begins slaughtering the sheep. Naturally.The most shocking and contentious blows to the Faith, however, seem to be coming from within Gracehome itself. Could the lauded prophet and leader of Nodd, Father Grace himself, be at the root of the suffering of his own flock? Does this plot ever have a different arc?All jabs and gibes aside, I really truly enjoyed this book. The language is simple and flows easily. The characters are for the most part individual and memorable – a particular feat on a compound with dozens upon dozens of identically outfitted cult members. The plot DID have a few twists and “Oh no he DI’NT!” moments, but the brunt of the greatness of this novel is not in its plot; rather, I found the most enjoyable parts to be its characters and their developments, and I continuously found them drawing me to pick the book back up every time I put it down. I’ve gotta give mad props to Hautman for turning out yet another YA novel completely grounded and lacking in clichéd teenage drama. This one has definitely earned a place on my “Reread on a Rainy Day” shelf.****
    • 4/5
      Seventeen year old Jacob lives in the American West with his mother and father, on a compound. They share the land and the chores with a small group of other like-minded people that believe that they are living in a godly manner. The remote pasture land is an ideal place to live, with very little contact with the outside world. The downside is that life is very prescribed, with gender based roles and strict conformance to the rules. What is Jacob to think when he begins to question the rules? Open discussion of ideas is strongly discouraged and the answers are unclear, especially those regarding faith.