The House of Eve follows two young black women in the 1950s, where racial prejudice is rife during this time. Ruby was living with her aunt after she was kicked out of the apartment by her own mother, Inez. She got accepted in the program “We Rise” which granted full scholarships for four years of college as she was very smart and aspired to become an optometrist. Then one day, Ruby met Shimmy who was white and Jewish, and they fell in love. This was extremely wrong as it was not considered proper for whites to be friends with Blacks in the 1950s. Ruby discovered she was pregnant with Shimmy’s child. 

Eleanor on the other hand, who was from Ohio,  went to an all black college in Washington, D.C. Because her family was not a well known and established family with a great amount of money, she had to work at the University’s library. There she met William, who belonged to a wealthy black family in Washington D.C. Despite William’s mother’s misgivings, both continued to see each other and fell in love. Then, Eleanor got pregnant and even though William’s mother was not happy about it, the wedding of Eleanor and William took place as soon as possible. Unfortunately, Eleanor had a miscarriage. When Eleanor was pregnant for the second time, she had a miscarriage again. 

This book was told through the voices of two distinctly unrelated black women at completely different times in their lives but some of their experiences were similar that knotted their lives together. Both women were forced to be strong with the little choices that they had during that time. They were shaped by the difficult decisions that they were forced to make throughout their lives. 

If you want to know what happened next to Ruby and Eleanor, get this e-book via the Libby App or simply click here!