Elizabeth Obermeyer

It has been some time since I’ve posted a review, and I’ve missed them! So when I received an email from the ECW Insiders, I was jumped at the chance to request a book or two for review.

There were SO MANY books that looked amazing, but the one that REALLY stood out for me was the debut novel by Rebecca Hirsch Garcia. You might recall my gushing review of her short story collection The Girl Who Cried Diamonds, which was one of my favourite reads of 2023. So when I saw this novel on the ECW Insiders list I couldn’t request it fast enough.

ECW Insiders actually sent me three(!!) books for review, so this is the first installment of my Hot Book Reviewer Girl Summer!

Other Evolutions follows the story of Alma Alt, the younger daughter of the Ottawa-based Alt family.

Alma grows up in the shadow of her golden sister, Marnie, who is five years older. If Alma is desperate to be like Marnie she is equally desperate to be her own person and struggles to know where she belongs, where she fits in. When Marnie goes to university in Montreal, Alma runs away to visit her, only to find a very changed Marnie; a Marnie who pretends Alma is just a friend, and not her sister. A Marnie who Alma comes to understand is ashamed of her family.

A rift opens between the girls that will never completely heal, and a neighbourhood friend offers to drive a shattered Alma back to Ottawa. A devastating car accident on the way home changes Alma’s life completely. She becomes even more stuck between worlds; unwilling and unable to move on after the accident, and relying on her quiet Ottawa neighbourhood to protect her from the world. When one day she sees the boy who was killed in the accident standing on the street corner, it becomes apparent that she can’t hide forever. 

Other Evolutions is part family saga and part coming of age story. There is a touch of Frankenstein in it, too, as the story veers from reality into the realm of the speculative, and Hirsch Garcia proves she is a master of keeping the tensions high and the structure seamless. She is also the master of including twists that should be implausible, but in her capable hands, become just another perfect layer to the story.

The themes  in Other Evolutions are familiar ones: loss and grief and family connections. But where this book shines is in its understanding that we are all often between worlds, stuck wondering where we fit. Whether it’s the roles we assign ourselves, or the ones we are born into, there are always periods of limbo, periods of hovering and of deep wondering: who are we, what is our place in the world, what is our purpose. In Other Evolutions, the story focuses on Alma’s own limbo, but we can see it all in the other characters as well, whether they know it or not. And this adds a depth of emotion and connection and reality that really resonates.

Hirsch Garcia is a brilliant storyteller and Other Evolutions is an incredibly rich and deeply moving story that manages to be somewhat familiar yet at the same time, also completely brand new.

I’m so grateful to the ECW Insiders program for sending me this ARC. Other Evolutions is out in October. And if you pre-order it now, it’s like a gift from current you to future you!