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Book Review: Evolving Elizah: Initiatum by CJ Hall

My thoughts about Evolving Elizah: Initiatum by CJ Hall

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Disclosure: I got sent a free copy of this book by the publisher via Net Galley.

The book synopsis for Evolving Elizah: Initiatum by CJ Hall

Elizah (Liz) Goeff was born into a world much like the one we know today, but she doesn't remember it. It's all gone now, covered in ash after a series of natural disasters threw North American civilization into a death spiral. Now Liz's world is the Green Grow 3, a lush space farm orbiting Earth designed to feed humanity until the planet can heal itself.

The space farm was a brilliant plan that might have worked, if not for the terrorist group that calls itself the New Generation. They are intent on destroying the Green Grow dream, and Liz is intent on destroying them. They took everything that mattered to her - her home, her mother, and her older brother Jackson who has been missing for years. She won't let them take the Green Grow 3 as well.

Cut off from the Green Grow Executive Council and abandoned by their former Captain, Liz will do anything to help her friend and now-Captain, Seth, to keep the ship and its inhabitants safe. They are her people now. Or are they? As Liz fights to save the ship and humanity, she realizes that nothing is as it seems - not the New Generation, not her brother's disappearance, and not the war she assumed Green Grow was winning.

When New Generation spies are captured on the ship, they begin to reveal truths about Liz's world and her family that she struggles to accept. As her illusions unravel, this fierce young woman must decide - who should she fight for now, and to what end? And is it really possible that she alone has the power to end to the conflict that has defined her entire life?

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Discussing Evolving Elizah: Initiatum by CJ Hall

Quotes from Evolving Elizah: Initiatum by CJ Hall

“You know what I like?” he asks, casting her a clever smile that instantly makes her giggle. She knows he will have something very smart to say—he always does when he smiles like that. Maybe when she’s 10, like he is, she will have clever things to say too.

“You want to learn as fast as you can,” he assures her. “Reading will take you to whole different worlds.” “Different worlds?” She is apprehensive. “Do I want to go to different worlds?” “Oh yes,” Jackson assures her. “You want to see and know and explore so much more than we have here.”

She thrusts a large spoonful of oatmeal into her mouth. People are starving on the surface. She used to be one of those people, so she is not keen on wasting food.

“Haven’t you heard that trying is conceding to failure before we even begin?” she whispers as she walks behind him.

It’s Liz Goeff. You know who she is, right? Liz doesn’t know what response Ellen received, but the fact that Ellen felt the need to raise the question inspires a hint of a smile on Liz’s lips. I must have a reputation with the New Generation, she thinks, feeling primal satisfaction at the idea of notoriety among her enemies.

Liz knows this is the most insidious kind of fear. Fearing for those you love.

“We have a tradition in this group,” Ruth begins, “of telling a story every night. Stories of the past so we don’t forget the way the world used to be, before it fell apart, and so that the young among us can have a chance to know of a time that was far different than this one. We tell the stories to remember. And yet tonight, here we are, and the future seems so much more exciting than the past.”

On the dock she was a feral beast on the verge of destroying its cage, but now, sleeping on the narrow cot, she exudes an endearing, child-like innocence. Nothing about this surprises Seth—it’s who she is.

The glance they shared couldn’t have lasted more than a couple of seconds, but it was long enough for him to see her strength and fire, her innocence and pain. It was all there in her eyes, all of her contradictions that attracted him like a bee to a flower.

Her world is so much bigger than his own that it scares him, even while it intrigues and inspires him to learn more, do more, and be more.

Liz remembers her mother teaching her to read, or was it Jackson? She digs deep into her memories, realizing they both helped her learn. And what a gift reading was—it opened new worlds for her and helped fill the hungry days, back when she still had a mother and her biggest concern was not having enough food.

Mistakes are so easy to make, and people are so good at making them.

Seth is in a room full of people, but it’s funny how that only makes him feel more alone.

She doesn’t have any pictures of her mother, only the image she holds in her mind. But all she has to do to call it up is look in a mirror. Normally she turns away, avoiding the memory, but tonight she continues to look, stepping precariously onto the precipice of a grief that threatens to consume her.

“Really?” Liz asks, incredulous. “So we’re not the bad guys, and the New Generation aren’t the bad guys. Is anyone wrong in your world?” “Does anyone need to be?” Mathilda asks, inquisitively. “Well, there must be some reason we’re killing each other. There’s a reason eighty-two people died on this ship. There’s a reason people are starving and being hunted on the surface. There’s some cause of all of this.” “Perhaps,” Mathilda muses, “or maybe we all need to take some ownership.”