Reviews tagging 'Kidnapping'

Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer

2 reviews

beautifulpaxielreads's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional medium-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? No

3.5

Joanna Ruth Meyer's Echo North is a novel that had been on my TBR list for some time. Now that I've read it, I feel it is a novel of four quarters. The first quarter started off strong, sagged in the second, picked up again for a strong, compelling, and moving third quarter, and tailed off again in the finale.

In this review, I will expand on that last statement.

The first quarter of Echo North was by far the most enjoyable for me.  The premise of the plot was strong, the chilly atmosphere vivid, and the worldbuilding compelling - and so imaginative and ingenious. I also loved Meyer's dismantling of the

"ugliness/disability=evil" trope with the MC, Echo, who has a scarred face after a childhood animal attack. That's such an insidious, ableist trope that needs to die in a fire and I am so glad the author handled it the way she did.

The second quarter I found less compelling, and the way time seemed to pass at this point in the story (and really from here on in) felt odd and jarring. I also dislike the way the

romance

was handled, it felt everything happened way too fast to be plausible and made the climax less compelling and believable and less easy to suspend my disbelief.

And just a side note, is anyone else sick of the "teen girl/young woman falls for a centuries-old man/immortal" trope? Because it made me uncomfortable this time around

As I said earlier, things picked up again in the third quarter, as the MC Echo

sets off on a long journey across icy landscapes to reclaim her lover from an evil, power-hungry witch queen

. The addition of a new character

called Ivan who accompanies Echo for the majority of her journey

added an interesting dynamic to the story. This character's backstory - which I won't spoil here - I found surprisingly moving.

Unfortunately, while the finale was well-written and kept me turning the pages, I found it less and less believable, thanks to the issues I had with the second quarter. It was so hard to imagine

Echo being prepared to put everything on the line - including her own life - for a young (okay, centuries-old) man she'd known for barely a year.

. I did think the twist that was revealed was done reasonably well despite the issues I had with it(again, I think writing about the

fluidity of time

can be really tricky to get right, and I don't know if Meyer quite pulled it off here).

Overall, this was a novel that had a lot of promise and very strong, imaginative writing, unfortunately, I feel like it had too many issues for me to be able to give it a full five stars.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Torture, Violence, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Body shaming, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Abandonment, Ableism, and Blood

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Animal death, Child abuse, and Child death

Minor: Pregnancy

instalovewithbooks's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

God, I really loved this book. Some of the plot twists were predictable, but I absolutely loved it. It felt like a mixture of Beauty and the Beast + Howls Moving Castle. 

I can't wait to see what Wind Daughter does to me! I plan to read that probably next month! 

P.S. there are some animal death in this book, but it isn't a dog, and it is for animals that aren't connected to the story much at all.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Kidnapping and Violence

Minor: Pregnancy, Animal death, and Body horror