Reviews with content warning for Body horror - Echo

As a horror novel, I’d give it one star. As a love story, 3. This book was a slog to read. The actual horror bits were great, but you had to wait a long time to get to them. Sam was one of the most annoying characters I’ve read in a while. And I recognize this is more of a translator issue, but I don’t know anyone in the US who actually says “sis” or “bro” every other sentence when talking to their sibling. There were also some… not plot holes, but not well filled plot points regarding Sam’s childhood trauma, and just who he was as a person in general.

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marleens's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

The opening paragraph creeped me out so much I had to stop reading and look around and breathe. That promised a lot for the rest of the book, but for me it didn’t quite live up to that promise. The horror elements of most of the book were nothing like that first paragraph, and I wonder if my expectations and experience would have been different without that beginning, because I think for a long time I was very much waiting to get back to that specific horror element. That being said, there were plenty of other good creepy moments along the way, and I liked the exploration of obsession and possession, and the things we do (or pretend not to see) for love.
I like Olde Heuvelt’s writing style, but in this book it was a bit odd. Very stream of consciousness sometimes, and a strange mixture of first and second person, often switching mid-sentence. It made sense, because you could definitely feel the characters losing their grip on reality, but it did make it hard to read sometimes. Also, I think it was a bit longer than it needed to be. But I liked our main POVs and the weirdness did often work for me.
Still, that brilliant creepy opening paragraph might have been the best part for me…

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falchionm's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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katkinslee's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Super weird but I bloody love it!

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katiemack's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I received this as an eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is deeply horrifying, but I didn't expect it to be so wry and...romantic? It's horror first and foremost, but there's some tenderness within Nick and Sam's relationship that I didn't expect.

As much as Sam frustrated me, I quite enjoyed him and his relatable defense mechanism (i.e., using humor as deflection). I wish we had spent more time with his sister, Julia, especially after that traumatizing start to the book, but it was still an epic, supernatural, car-crash of a journey as Nick, Sam, and another character or two try to piece together exactly what the hell happened to Nick's face after his perilous journey up the Maudit. (If you know any French, this should tell you exactly what kind of mountain the Maudit is.)

Do you like alpinism, Stephen King, Dutch novels, or all of the above? Pick this up.

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