What do you think?
Rate this book
Echo
A girl asleep for a hundred years, a group of artifact hunters in a post-apocalyptic mob controlled city, and the necklace that will tangle all their lives together.
Echo's body has been in a medically induced sleep for almost one hundred years, her mind awake to the changing world through the technology in her necklace and the safeguards put in place by her father.
With a young child kidnapped and her oldest enemy closing in, Echo will have to work together with Bryn and his group of Hunters to save not only the child, but her life.
Echo's body has been in a medically induced sleep for almost one hundred years, her mind awake to the changing world through the technology in her necklace and the safeguards put in place by her father.
With a young child kidnapped and her oldest enemy closing in, Echo will have to work together with Bryn and his group of Hunters to save not only the child, but her life.
159 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 19, 2019
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 5, 2019
This could've been a great book. I really liked the premise, and the author has a gift for style. Her sentences were generally evocative and well-written, but the characters, their motivations, and the logical progression of ther plot left something to be desired. I wouldn't necessarily recommend against any future work by the author- I think she has a gift with words and has the potential to write perfectly good novels, but I can't wholeheartedly recommend this one. If it helps, there are no explicit adult scenes, foul language is non-existent, and the target audience seems to be teens and young adults.
There are three main viewpoint characters. First is Bryn. He is primarily a researcher for a group of four artifact hunters that live together in a large city. One of his roomates, Petrichor (AKA Pet), with whom he spent a lot of time as a child, is more of an action person, and she spends her time actually retrieving and delivering the artifacts which they're paid to find. Echo is the third viewpoint character, and she's deliberating a life-changing decision.
Their storylines begin to intertwine when Bryn and Pet's group of hunters is hired to find a necklace that'd been commissioned over a hundred years ago for a famous scientist's daughter. Echo haunts the library where Bryn does most of his research, and sees an image of the pendant on Bryn's tablet while she's chatting with him. Bryn knows by her reaction that she knows something about the necklace, and wants to know what so he can find it. Eventually, they get to trusting each other a bit more, and Bryn learns of Echo's relationship to the pendant. Simple enough, but then a boy goes missing and a man asks Bryn to help him find his son. Echo fears it has something to do with her, and for me, this is where the plot really starts to unravel.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Rewind a bit. Back when Bryn first meets Echo, she is introduced as a program that only exists within the library, and has been there for as long as anyone can remember. The first thing that really kind of irked me enough to pull me out of the story is that the scene in which they first interact, Echo never tells Bryn her name. A cyborg that warns Bryn against getting involved with Echo only refers to her as "the program." Yet a few scenes later, when Bryn is back in the library, he knows Echo's name. I found it odd that the author didn't capitalize on this introductory scene to add a bit more detail to the world and the characters.
Moving on to the cyborg, Ava, Echo notes in one of the earlier scenes that this cyborg always seems to be staring at her and she doesn't know her or know why she's doing it. The thing is, later on, it's revealed that Ava has literally been watching her for over a hundred years. I found it difficult to believe that for a hundred years, Echo would see this cyborg staring at her, and never bother to ask who she is or why she's watching her. However, the two of them have a conversation in a later scene in which they seem to be at ease with one another, with Ava in a known role as a protector of sorts. The problem is that no scenes exist in between to explain this discrepancy.
The thing that bothered me the most is how contrived the so-called "plot twists" are. The boy that's kidnapped has absolutely no relation to anyone in Bryn's group, or to Echo, except that he'd been to the library with his father. Bryn smiled or waved to them once as they walked in. That's it. And somehow, some mysterious member of a group that Pet and Bryn both have ties to zeroes in on this one point of contact to try to get to Echo... Who is clearly visible in the library the whole time and seems to be able to disappear at will. The kidnapping left me scratching my head, but I was far enough into the novel to think that maybe there would be something to it. There's really not. It's as if the author ran out of ideas and just threw that in there in order to have some kind of conflict to keep the story alive. I still am not sure how kidnapping the boy would've gotten the antagonist any closer to Echo. Instead, I would think that it would drive Bryn and Pet off-task so that they're less likely to lead him to where Echo's body is hidden (she is disembodied while under treatment for a terrible disease and her father invented some kind of longevity serum that kept her alive... I think. It wasn't terribly clear exactly what kept her alive and young, other than a cure for her disease).
Later on, it's revealed that Pet has contact with the five artifact hunting "mobs" that run the city. She taps her contacts to try to find the boy. She also has a habit of randomly being drugged or drinking when she knows she can't handle alcohol. I still don't understand how those scenes helped to further the plot. Bryn and Echo develop their relationship as he asks her for help looking for the kid, and she taps into cameras (a skill she is just now realizing she has after more than a century...) to try to help track him down. She gives them their first lead, but is pretty inconsequential in the rest of the kidnapping dilemma.
Eventually, Pet meets a guy that she likes, and Bryn takes notice. He seems happy for them, but in a protective, big brother, "better not hurt her" kind of way. Then Pet, for reasons unknown, decides to tell Bryn that her boyfriend betrayed her and is somehow involved in the kidnapping. Bryn goes over and gives him an earful, straining the relationships within the group of contacts Pet has gathered to help find the kid. The boyfriend is innocent, and he still helps to find the boy.
During a dinner party, Pet is kidnapped and taken to where the child is being held... Not really sure why her, and not anyone else. Anyone who sees the group would've been able to tell that kidnapping Pet would only incite them to find her rather than focus on the pendant (and the girl who's wearing it) that the author tries to push as the true motive. Naturally, Bryn and company take action. At the same time, Echo decides that she loves Bryn enough to try to resume her human form, thus making her less desirable to... artifact collectors? Scientists in search of immortality? I don't really know. The "big bad" is never really introduced- just a random collection of thugs that were hired to find Echo. One key figure was the leader of the Wolf group of hunters, but he didn't seem to be the one behind it all. He's just a power hungry mob boss whose strings are being pulled by someone else that must've been able to promise him the power he desires. Anyway, Bryn, Pet's boyfriend, and the rest of the contacts Pet has gathered to help with the kidnapping go and retrieve her and the boy with no real issues.
The climax was unsatisfying because the person behind it all was never revealed, nor were his motives. Without those motives to draw upon, I found the antagonist, whoever it may have been, flat and unrelatable. At least the last 10% of the novel was denouement, and it was way longer than necessary. Bryn is revealed to be the leader of the Dragon group of artifact hunters, but I don't know how that really affected anything because he didn't lean into his mob for assistance during his hunt for the kid. Apparently it means he has money, even though in the earlier part of the book, there was mention of how poor the food Bryn, Pet, and their two roommates had. It felt like this was added so he had money at the end to buy a fancy wine for a dinner party to celebrate Echo's new corporeal form and Pet's escape from her kidnappers.
Overall, I struggled with this novel. The writing itself was well done, but the plot was illogical and the characters were aloof. There wasn't much I could relate to (aside from Bryn's constant presence in a library... which is apparently unnecessary because he occasionally does the same research from home). There is so much potential for a storyline like this, but it's just not polished enough for me to recommend. So much 22nd century technology could be explored, so many relationshps could be deepened and tested, so much angst could accompany Echo's decision to take her leap... And it's just not tapped. The plot doesn't flow logically from one event to the next. The characters lack depth. I give it three stars for the raw talent of the writer, but well-written words can only account for part of it. This book needs a hard edit to streamline it and depth added to the plot points that matter in order to make it really shine.
There are three main viewpoint characters. First is Bryn. He is primarily a researcher for a group of four artifact hunters that live together in a large city. One of his roomates, Petrichor (AKA Pet), with whom he spent a lot of time as a child, is more of an action person, and she spends her time actually retrieving and delivering the artifacts which they're paid to find. Echo is the third viewpoint character, and she's deliberating a life-changing decision.
Their storylines begin to intertwine when Bryn and Pet's group of hunters is hired to find a necklace that'd been commissioned over a hundred years ago for a famous scientist's daughter. Echo haunts the library where Bryn does most of his research, and sees an image of the pendant on Bryn's tablet while she's chatting with him. Bryn knows by her reaction that she knows something about the necklace, and wants to know what so he can find it. Eventually, they get to trusting each other a bit more, and Bryn learns of Echo's relationship to the pendant. Simple enough, but then a boy goes missing and a man asks Bryn to help him find his son. Echo fears it has something to do with her, and for me, this is where the plot really starts to unravel.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Rewind a bit. Back when Bryn first meets Echo, she is introduced as a program that only exists within the library, and has been there for as long as anyone can remember. The first thing that really kind of irked me enough to pull me out of the story is that the scene in which they first interact, Echo never tells Bryn her name. A cyborg that warns Bryn against getting involved with Echo only refers to her as "the program." Yet a few scenes later, when Bryn is back in the library, he knows Echo's name. I found it odd that the author didn't capitalize on this introductory scene to add a bit more detail to the world and the characters.
Moving on to the cyborg, Ava, Echo notes in one of the earlier scenes that this cyborg always seems to be staring at her and she doesn't know her or know why she's doing it. The thing is, later on, it's revealed that Ava has literally been watching her for over a hundred years. I found it difficult to believe that for a hundred years, Echo would see this cyborg staring at her, and never bother to ask who she is or why she's watching her. However, the two of them have a conversation in a later scene in which they seem to be at ease with one another, with Ava in a known role as a protector of sorts. The problem is that no scenes exist in between to explain this discrepancy.
The thing that bothered me the most is how contrived the so-called "plot twists" are. The boy that's kidnapped has absolutely no relation to anyone in Bryn's group, or to Echo, except that he'd been to the library with his father. Bryn smiled or waved to them once as they walked in. That's it. And somehow, some mysterious member of a group that Pet and Bryn both have ties to zeroes in on this one point of contact to try to get to Echo... Who is clearly visible in the library the whole time and seems to be able to disappear at will. The kidnapping left me scratching my head, but I was far enough into the novel to think that maybe there would be something to it. There's really not. It's as if the author ran out of ideas and just threw that in there in order to have some kind of conflict to keep the story alive. I still am not sure how kidnapping the boy would've gotten the antagonist any closer to Echo. Instead, I would think that it would drive Bryn and Pet off-task so that they're less likely to lead him to where Echo's body is hidden (she is disembodied while under treatment for a terrible disease and her father invented some kind of longevity serum that kept her alive... I think. It wasn't terribly clear exactly what kept her alive and young, other than a cure for her disease).
Later on, it's revealed that Pet has contact with the five artifact hunting "mobs" that run the city. She taps her contacts to try to find the boy. She also has a habit of randomly being drugged or drinking when she knows she can't handle alcohol. I still don't understand how those scenes helped to further the plot. Bryn and Echo develop their relationship as he asks her for help looking for the kid, and she taps into cameras (a skill she is just now realizing she has after more than a century...) to try to help track him down. She gives them their first lead, but is pretty inconsequential in the rest of the kidnapping dilemma.
Eventually, Pet meets a guy that she likes, and Bryn takes notice. He seems happy for them, but in a protective, big brother, "better not hurt her" kind of way. Then Pet, for reasons unknown, decides to tell Bryn that her boyfriend betrayed her and is somehow involved in the kidnapping. Bryn goes over and gives him an earful, straining the relationships within the group of contacts Pet has gathered to help find the kid. The boyfriend is innocent, and he still helps to find the boy.
During a dinner party, Pet is kidnapped and taken to where the child is being held... Not really sure why her, and not anyone else. Anyone who sees the group would've been able to tell that kidnapping Pet would only incite them to find her rather than focus on the pendant (and the girl who's wearing it) that the author tries to push as the true motive. Naturally, Bryn and company take action. At the same time, Echo decides that she loves Bryn enough to try to resume her human form, thus making her less desirable to... artifact collectors? Scientists in search of immortality? I don't really know. The "big bad" is never really introduced- just a random collection of thugs that were hired to find Echo. One key figure was the leader of the Wolf group of hunters, but he didn't seem to be the one behind it all. He's just a power hungry mob boss whose strings are being pulled by someone else that must've been able to promise him the power he desires. Anyway, Bryn, Pet's boyfriend, and the rest of the contacts Pet has gathered to help with the kidnapping go and retrieve her and the boy with no real issues.
The climax was unsatisfying because the person behind it all was never revealed, nor were his motives. Without those motives to draw upon, I found the antagonist, whoever it may have been, flat and unrelatable. At least the last 10% of the novel was denouement, and it was way longer than necessary. Bryn is revealed to be the leader of the Dragon group of artifact hunters, but I don't know how that really affected anything because he didn't lean into his mob for assistance during his hunt for the kid. Apparently it means he has money, even though in the earlier part of the book, there was mention of how poor the food Bryn, Pet, and their two roommates had. It felt like this was added so he had money at the end to buy a fancy wine for a dinner party to celebrate Echo's new corporeal form and Pet's escape from her kidnappers.
Overall, I struggled with this novel. The writing itself was well done, but the plot was illogical and the characters were aloof. There wasn't much I could relate to (aside from Bryn's constant presence in a library... which is apparently unnecessary because he occasionally does the same research from home). There is so much potential for a storyline like this, but it's just not polished enough for me to recommend. So much 22nd century technology could be explored, so many relationshps could be deepened and tested, so much angst could accompany Echo's decision to take her leap... And it's just not tapped. The plot doesn't flow logically from one event to the next. The characters lack depth. I give it three stars for the raw talent of the writer, but well-written words can only account for part of it. This book needs a hard edit to streamline it and depth added to the plot points that matter in order to make it really shine.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 11, 2025
I was very intrigued by the premise of this book however, I was not attached to any of the character characters and the storyline was left lacking.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews