Echoes by Alice Reeds

Echoes by Alice Reeds
ISBN: 9781640632486
Series: Echoes #1
Published by Entangled Teen on August 7, 2018
Genres: Mystery, Romance, Young Adult
Pages: 373
Format: Paperback
Goodreads | The StoryGraph
Amazon, Bookshop.org, Better World Books, Book Depository

"Fast-paced and thrilling. ECHOES is a heart-pounding and addictive love story." —Mia Siegert, author of Jerkbait

They wake on a deserted island. Fiona and Miles, high school enemies now stranded together. No memory of how they got there. No plan to follow, no hope to hold on to.

Each step forward reveals the mystery behind the forces that brought them here. And soon, the most chilling discovery: something else is on the island with them.

Something that won't let them leave alive.

Echoes is a thrilling adventure about confronting the impossible, discovering love in the most unexpected places, and, above all, finding hope in the face of the unknown.

The Echoes series is best enjoyed in order.
Reading Order:
Book #1 Echoes
Book #2 Fractures

Characters: 5, The main characters started out with the promise of an interesting evolution. Fiona, a blue-haired kickboxing champ with what appears to be an abusive father, and Miles, a rich kid (yes, that’s his defining characteristic). Trust me, Miles doesn’t grow a personality by the end. He functions solely as the cardboard love interest for Fiona (who also doesn’t go through any sort of character arc). I kept pushing myself to read this waste of a tree in order to find out how the impossible scenario we’re presented with is possible. But my friends, things just got worse the further I went.

Atmosphere: 4, There are two main settings: Berlin, Germany and a deserted tropical island. I’ll be honest- neither felt real to me. Berlin gets some descriptions of tourist spots, but nothing to give me a sense of whether it’s a concrete jungle or a sprawling metro, hot and sticky or cool and foggy, filled with the sounds of foreign languages or car horns. The tropical island has a variety of fruit and a waterfall, but nothing about the setting felt real or immediate. The kids eat only fruit, yet no mention is made of hunger (or the runs); they barely drink anything for the first several days, yet no mention is made of thirst or sunburn, and apparently the sand isn’t even a minor inconvenience (except when it comes to burying dead guys). I needed to feel the panic, the stakes, the hopelessness of their situations and instead I got a lot of Fiona’s inner dialogue prompting me with strings of questions (seriously, something obviously unusual would happen and then she’d think “Did that just happen? Did I really just see x, y, z? Could it be this random idea that I haven’t considered at all before now?” Note to authors: please assume your readers know that what you have written is important, especially if it catches the eye of the MC through whose eyes we’re experiencing the story.

Writing: 4, I could tell the author wasn’t raised in the States, because Miles frequently ends a sentence with “, no?” and that’s not something we do in English, especially not American English. Also, when the kids were stressed or scared, they wouldn’t use contractions, so the dialogue felt very stilted, formal, and inauthentic. Where was the editor for this? The ratio of dialogue to inner monologue felt off, and the longer it went, the worse it got. THEN we come to the insta-love. Oh yes, Not Like Other Girls and No Personality fall in lurve because…one cannot simply respect or admire a member of the opposite sex, oh no. And of course, rather than brainstorming the situation and ways to get off the island, canoodling and playing 20 questions is the way to go. Say it with me, guys: Tragedy is not romantic, it’s tragic. This Byronic crap, where the neglected child is automatically Special for being abused and thus made worthy of love once their tragic backstory is revealed? It’s toxic.

Plot: 4, One big nope. The premise starts out well. And though it’s clunky, there are a couple of reveals filed under ‘Things That Make You Go Hrmmm’. But the author keeps paralleling moments and statements in the two settings, which made a lot of it seem redundant. Then the Berlin story evaporates for a long time (frankly, I lost interest anyway). Then we go full Scooby Doo with throwing in villains that make no sense, explanations that make no sense (the FBI is not the CIA!), things that Fiona just automatically assumes to be true (despite not only a lifetime of evidence to the contrary, but the fact that several times in this life-or-death situation it’s been proven that she can’t trust what she sees).

Intrigue: 4, Surely, I kept thinking, the author will reveal something about the actual mystery plot soon. And then I discovered this is book 1 in a series. So basically, 80% of this book is filler thrown in there with the hope that readers will continue the series and the publisher can make more money.

Logic: 5, Where to even start? The rules get thrown out and ignored, chapter after chapter. The characters’ motivation is…unclear, after initial attempts to get home fail.

Enjoyment: 4, I really should’ve DNFed this one. I’m apparently on a losing streak with my reads (whomp whomp). I’m never reading another Alice Reeds book again. I may not read another Entangled: Teen book again (seriously, WHERE was the editor??). I’m certainly not continuing the story, because all evidence points to it being resolved to be something the opposite of clever.

Related Posts