The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson

 

This book was well written, the story moved along well and the ending was fine. The issue with this book is that the excitement is at a constant. Not unexciting, but there's no up and down. It maintains somewhat exciting from beginning to finish, and left me with a book that I feel like I'll forget what it's about in a week or so. I really did enjoy this book, and I feel that Sadeqa Johnson is an excellent writer, but I can only give it a 3 because it's just not memorable enough. The House of Eve is about two parallel stories of two Black women, Ruby and Eleanor. Ruby grew up in a broken family after her mom got pregnant at a young age. Ruby's family has no money, and she knows the only way out of poverty was to win a highly coveted, prestigious scholarship through the We Rise program and go to college. This became difficult when she met a young Jewish man, Shimmy, and got pregnant. Eleanor is a student at Howard University and meets a medical student, William. William is also Black, but fair skinned. This is the 1950's, fair skinned Blacks often discriminated against dark skinned Blacks. William wants to pursue a relationship with Eleanor, even though everyone around William is against it due to their difference in skin color. Eleanor got knocked up by William. They get married. Eleanor miscarries. A year later, Eleanor is pregnant again. William is in medical residency, so the timing isn't ideal. Eleanor tries to self abort the baby (as abortion was illegal back then), but it didn't work. Eventually she miscarries again. William finds out this is actually her third miscarriage, as he didn't know about the first one she had in high school. The doctor tells them it could be dangerous for Eleanor to get pregnant again. William and his mom Rose discusses together and decides it's best for them to adopt. They donate money to the House of Magdalene, an adoption agency that connects unwanted pregnancies with parents that wish to adopt. Mother Margaret of House of Magdalene comes to Eleanor and William's house one day, unknowing to Eleanor that this was set up by William and Rose, and convinces Eleanor to go through adoption. Eleanor is assured that only her and William had to know. She doesn't want Rose to know because Rose already sees her as inferior. (Spoiler alert: she later finds out and is upset but gets over it.) Back to Ruby, she knows this baby would ruin all her plans. Shimmy wants to run away with her but she doesn't really trust him and won't let him contact her. She finds out about House of Madalene from Shimmy's mom, who tells her this is what Shimmy wants too. Shimmy's mom will pay for her stay at Magdalene and she will also make sure Ruby gets her scholarship. Ruby's aunt tells her to take this opportunity. Ruby does. The condition at Magdalene isn't great, but not the worst. She's there with few other Black women, and is separated from the White women. When one of her roommate's baby is born with a droopy eye, they decide to induce Ruby's baby so they could make the donation go through as planned. Ruby's baby is adopted by Eleanor and William. Ruby gets her scholarship and becomes an optometrist. Her baby is revealed to be artistic just like Ruby.