'What Lies Above' by Caitlin Lambert Is a Riveting Dystopian Debut Novel

Author Sophia Alexander holding her copy of What Lies Above

What Lies Above, by Blue Ridge Mountains dystopian author Caitlin Lambert, tells of Eva, a teenager who lives underground and works for a society that she’s always trusted—until she discovers that they are only pretending her friend’s father has died. After he disappears, more worrisome events occur. She soon realizes that all is not as it seems—and, unfortunately, she has to conclude that her society is not at all to be trusted.  On a mission to save her best friend, she clambers into the electrical grid to make her way to the Government Sector, where only the elite—and her best friend—are allowed.

Meanwhile, Eli is a government worker tasked with disciplining runaways, among other things. He justifies his position by telling himself that he is protecting his family at home, drawing suspicion away from them.  He also knows that he is not punishing runaways with the force that many loyal government zealots would inflict.  Unfortunately, Eli’s diligence is recognized, and he is recruited for special military purposes.

The story flips back and forth between Eva and Eli, who do not meet up as soon as I expected they would.  Ms. Lambert leaves many questions unanswered, which I’m assuming is because there will be a sequel.  For instance, I still don’t know what happened to Eva’s friend’s father, nor to her best friend—not for sure.  However, the author does throw a plot twist in at the end that for some reason I had not foreseen (hats off to any author who manages that without inciting my gall at its randomness—but this wasn’t random and was quite well done).

Caitlin Lambert piqued my interest with her laser intuition regarding next-level warfare. My blood quickened with her emotional intensity and intense action scenes.  She had amazing descriptions. And I loved her characters’ ethical predicaments.

At the same time, by the end of the story, I couldn’t think straight for worrying about her characters not eating!  Breatharians?  It went on too long, so long that I didn’t buy it when they were worrying about ethics, pivotal choices, or anything else that didn’t meet their survival needs.  I needed them to have a bit of respite here or there simply so that I could sink back into the action!

Then… her young adult characters—most often opposite sexes together—were so chaste and physically unaffected by each other so as to seem fairly sex-hormone-less.  I do like a clean story, and I believe Caitlin is a Christian author, but this was baffling to me as a reader. It’s as if such thoughts never crossed their minds!  If I were freezing to death, I’d bundle up with just about anyone, I do believe—but her chaste young people huddled on their own, ensuring that we don’t see any Jacob/Bella (Twilight series) heat going on!  I was unsure of any romance even to the end, despite a few possibilities, though there were intense emotional connections in many directions. Romance was surely going on, though… maybe?… but those strongly forged relationships could all have been platonic, every one of them!

That said, I am excited for the next book, and I hope it comes out soon.  Unfortunately, the author’s social media seems to have been loaded with wonderful posts and videos around the release of this novel in 2021, and there was some mention of having completed another book (I assume the sequel), but then it’s as if she dropped off the face of the planet…  Let’s hope she’s simply hard at work on the sequels... or getting distracted like me... but I can't help but worry, given the content of her novel, especially!