Other Evolutions by Rebecca Hirsch Garcia is a rather odd novel. It tells the story of Alma Alt, a native Canadian whose family is an interracial Jewish-Mexican blend. She is also the, rather sheltered, youngest daughter who is known for her disappearing tricks that started the day of her grandmother’s funeral when she disappeared for several hours. That same disappearance resulted in her meeting the neighbor boy for the first time. Alma ends up fixating on the boy who is the same age as her older sister Marnie. When they both go away to college Alma ends up struggling at home without the buffer of her sister. Deciding to go visit her sister and leave Ottawa in the process she ends up discovering that her sister is hiding their heritage and pretending to be white, something Alma is unable to do due to her darker skin tone. Feeling utterly betrayed by her sister she disappears again only to find the apartment of the boy who lived next door. Seeing how distraught she is he offers her a ride home despite it being the middle of the night. It is on the way home that tragedy strikes leaving Alma without an arm and the boy dead. Stuck in a pattern of grief and trauma Alma is unable to move on even as her family starts falling apart around her.
I will admit that I found myself reading this book because the description sounded interesting. It was indeed rather interesting as I found myself drawn right into Alma’s struggles. The anguish, grief and trauma she shows was rather intense and it was probably worsened by her also being barely a teenager when it happened. In all honesty, I think most people, even adults, would have struggled with what she went through and it seems like she was rather brave for having been able to handle it at all. It was interesting how everything was so interconnected and how the ripple effects played out over the course of the story. Alma didn’t necessarily notice some of them because of what happened but they were there lurking in the background. The events ended up affecting the whole family, albeit in different ways. There were a few things about the story outside of that that I found rather intriguing. A big one was how the family was Jewish-Mexican as that is an interesting combination. The Mexican side was Catholic which is a religion that often has conflict with Judaism and yet there were no religious conflicts mentioned. The biggest conflict was because the mom was Mexican, not Catholic. I also found the structure rather intriguing as well. It was told in four sections each of which were structured around different events in Alma’s life but within each section were numerous subsections that helped convey the overall the story but often contained numerous asides and partially related stories. It was unusual but still pretty good. I am happy to give this book four out of five stars from me.
This book would probably best be classified as contemporary fiction but it does have some relatively minor sci-fi elements later in the story. It would probably best appeal to readers who tend to prefer contemporary fiction. While this is technically an adult novel I would also consider it to hold a decent amount of appeal for young adults or even older teens as well. Outside of the trauma of losing her arm and seeing the neighbor boy die there wasn’t anything that would make it inappropriate for younger readers. It could easily be read by readers as young as fourteen in my opinion. Definitely a good novel to consider if it sounds appealing. As always feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.