Transcendence by Shay Savage

It’s said that women and men are from two different planets when it comes to communication, but how can they overcome the obstacles of prehistoric times when one of them simply doesn’t have the ability to comprehend language?

Ehd’s a caveman living on his own in a harsh wilderness. He’s strong and intelligent, but completely alone. When he finds a beautiful young woman in his pit trap, it’s obvious to him that she is meant to be his mate. He doesn’t know where she came from; she’s wearing some pretty odd clothing, and she makes a lot of noises with her mouth that give him a headache. Still, he’s determined to fulfill his purpose in life – provide for her, protect her, and put a baby in her.

Elizabeth doesn’t know where she is or exactly how she got there. She’s confused and distressed by her predicament, and there’s a caveman hauling her back to his cavehome. She’s not at all interested in Ehd’s primitive advances, and she just can’t seem to get him to listen. No matter what she tries, getting her point across to this primitive, but beautiful, man is a constant – and often hilarious – struggle.

With only each other for company, they must rely on one another to fight the dangers of the wild and prepare for the winter months. As they struggle to coexist, theirs becomes a love story that transcends language and time. 

-- Goodreads.com --

I was so excited to read this book! I read some great reviews and the rating on Goodreads is 4.14, which is amazing! However I was very disappointed by this book. Probably my biggest issue with Transcendence was the fact that we only get Ehd's point of view while the synopsis of the novel gives the impression that it would be told in dual perspective, which I would have found so much more interesting!

The reader is not given any explanation as to how Elizabeth travelled through time, which is something I therefore kept wondering about whilst reading and it really started to frustrate me. We also only get to know Elizabeth through Ehd, which was a shame, because Elizabeth's point of view could have been so awesome! But maybe the author was just too lazy to come up with a decent explanation for the time travelling and therefore couldn't be bothered to give Elizabeth a pov.

Shay Savage did write a fun introduction to the book, which resulted in me having a lot of expectations I shouldn't have had. However, although I found it intriguing in the introduction, whilst reading the book, it really started to annoy me that Ehd would never be able to understand a word of what Elizabeth was saying, especially since it is something the author added and would not have been true. It would have been so much more interesting to see Ehd develop a language, that way we could have learned a lot more about Elizabeth and her thoughts as well.

Then there is the plot, at first everything is new and exciting but it quickly becomes repetitive and boring, to be honest, nothing really happens. Ehd is obsessed with putting babies into Elizabeth and at some occasions he is almost raping her, but he never does in the end, he is often thinking about getting inside her when she doesn't want to or when she's sleeping. I mean, that really creeped me out. Elizabeth does resist but Ehd does not understand why and therefore I felt that the author was okay with describing thoughts of rape without further consequences. 

I am very disappointed by this book, I was hoping to love it but I almost didn't finish it, in fact I had to put it down for more than a month, before finally deciding I wanted to finish it so I could write a review. In the end, I gave it 2 out of 5 stars and I still think that was being generous. I don't recommend this book at all. Don't waste your time on this one, there are so many better books out there!