Reviews with content warning for Medical content - Echo Mountain – Ellie geht ihren eigenen Weg

Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Echo Mountain – Ellie geht ihren eigenen Weg by Lauren Wolk

10 reviews

ruthmoog's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

A young girl discovers her affinity for caring and medicine.
An enjoyable story set in a difficult time, I think girls with a love of nature and a want to feel special would love it - but it kinda encourages experimenting on people which maybe isn't ideal...

Content Warnings

mjenae's review against another edition

5.0

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

5 reasons this is now one of my favorite books of all time:

The wild setting. This was the first thing I noticed, the hook that drew me in. Three winters before the book starts, Ellie’s family moved from town to an uncivilized mountain, along with others who left for the same reason—The Great Depression. Up to this point and throughout the book, they have been rebuilding their lives to fit this new scenery. I was enraptured watching Ellie live out of the woods and with the woods, catching fish and taking honey from a tree and making herbal remedies and sleeping with the dogs. She's kind of me in another world—with a lot more spunk, I suppose.
The relationships. Especially the one between her and Larkin (he's a boy her age, and their friendship is so charming and relatable and enjoyable to follow), but also Larkin and his grandmother, Esther and Ellie, all the animals, Larkin and his mother and Ellie and hers. All the mothers played a very prominent part in this story, which I loved. The whole book was so full of loyalty and hurt and staying through the hurt—and most of all, so much love.
The medical aspect. I've always said I could never be a doctor, and I still strongly maintain that opinion, but it's interesting to read about this topic in a book. Cate the nurse and Ellie make the mountain their doctor's office, using plants and animals and strange but effective concoctions to heal. I came away with genuinely valuable tips. (Someone strand me in the wild, quick. I know how to make glue out of deer hide now.)
Watching Ellie grow into herself. There's a faint underlying theme (touched on directly only a couple times) of becoming who you were meant to be—the Velveteen Rabbit story. Seeing this happen to Ellie (and her mother and Larkin) made me very happy and a tiny bit jealous. Her lifestyle, and who it leads her to be, is kind of my dream. Sometimes, I feel like she did in town. I want that same liberation. But for now, I'll have to be content with living it vicariously.
The animals. Of course this was coming. If you're a dog person, you'll love all the dogs in this story. There are three main ones, and then a whole litter of puppies yet—plus a horse and a bear and a snake and bees and fish and a cow or two, all of whom Ellie makes connections with. (She has the animal sense, if you want to say it that way.) Books about animals can sometimes bore me, but turns out I love it as a subplot. It made me feel guilty about how little time I'd been spending with my cats lately. Don't worry—I've been giving my animals plenty of attention this last week. Thanks, Echo Mountain.

PS: I know the back cover of the book already says this, but I just have to repeat: absolutely brilliant.

Content Warnings

redefiningrachel's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous emotional hopeful slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Content Warnings

jenn_bookstitcher's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

stacikristine's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous dark emotional informative tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The author's writing was vivid and engaging. There were some heavy, hard topics, but also great truths and growth. I'll read this with my kids when they are older.

Content Warnings

bstrawbs's review against another edition

5.0

emotional inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Highly descriptive and beautifully written. I loved reading the relationships and interactions between the characters and setting myself solidly in the shoes of a young girl who is trying to adapt to this new world that is echo mountain.

I found Ellie to be a highly lovable character with a few wisecracks that reminded me of when I worked with younger children. I also enjoyed her inner thoughts that seemed so simple and so complex.

It really was a reflective bit of literature where you could watch the characters grow and change and you could see the way they cared for one another in a foreign and harsh place.

I will be rereading this again. I loved the way it was written and I can see myself falling back into the easy pacing of it. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys detailed description and character driven stories.

Content Warnings

waytoomanybooks's review against another edition

2.5

adventurous emotional sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I'm not the target audience for the book, but I picked it up because I had nostalgia for the days where I only read books about young heroines on adventures in a historical setting. And the book definitely delivered on both of those aspects! But it has its flaws.

For one thing, it's overly long. It would've been a tighter story if it were 100 pages shorter. The plot gets stale because waiting around is a core component of the story, but not in an interesting way.

I also found Ellie's family really unsympathetic to her even though the whole family was grieving over a shared tragedy. A tragedy where Ellie shouldered all the blame for literally no reason. Her family essentially ostracizes her to a degree where she's sent to sleep in the barn without supper. This treatment of her continues through the whole book...until the mother and sister have a change of heart in the last few chapters. And Ellie instantly forgives them. Her family doesn't even apologize for their wrongdoing. It was really disappointing.

I also think the story suffers from having too many plotlines. We have the Stock Market Crash, a family tragedy, and Ellie's only friends suffer multiple tragedies (which Ellie gets roped into). And for some reason Ellie, who is only 12, is the only one making any attempts to put out all of these fires. I didn't find it inspiring; I found it incredibly depressing.

I think a kid would like this book because kids like stories where people their age have agency and intelligence, which Ellie definitely has. (Although Ellie sounds more like she's 24 than 12. I kept having to remind myself that she's a child because she doesn't sound like a child.) just wish we could've had a story where her family feels any sort of remorse for their actions and that Ellie found happiness in more than just the last 10 pages.

Content Warnings