Reviews

Alien: Echo by Mira Grant

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krzykot's review against another edition

It's a quick and fun read.
The parts with biology, xenobiology and gore were excellent. I loved reading about alien science, it was engaging and clearly written out of real interest. Descriptions of xenomorphs brought chills to my spine.

But. It suffers from the YA treatment immensely.
The romance parts are forceful, some feel like they were just randomly put there to fill the quota, like the author was contractually obligated to put a kissing scene every x pages. I am super happy for two girls being in love, but the descriptions of blood and viscera shuffled with teenage angst and cutesy first love were super jarring. Like, either turn down the gore or the wee, can't really have both.

I wish the author wrote something more in the universe, just maybe not YA? Like, the characters can stay, but let it be a regular sci fi horror because those parts in the book were awesome and it would be really interesting to see the author spread her wings.

sn03's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

bibliothecaris's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.0

supermilne's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

2.0

sallytwibbles's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.0

I enjoyed this one even though it is YA (my "YA" days are over 40 years ago).

The positives:
1. The plot was outstanding with a clever twist that you think you see coming but, no, you didn't.
2. Excellent action sequences.
3. Gay.

The slightly meh (from an old man's perspective anyway):
1. Some of the internal dialog/teenage yearning journal entries, for me, dragged on a bit: "I wish I could kiss her" "OMG, I'm kissing her" "I wish I could kiss her again" etc.
2. I didn't understand why the bully was randomly super violent. Space rage, probably. I guess it be like that with bullies sometimes.

dezthereader's review against another edition

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adventurous fast-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

3.0

katleap's review

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3.0

3 stars

Olivia wants to go home to earth where the doctors might be able to help her twin sister Viola get better. She wants to maybe kiss the hot popular girl in her class. She wants to some day be a xenobiologist like her parents. She is not expecting to have Aliens crash land on the colony. She is going to have to fight to survive if she wants to save her sister.

I liked the world building and the action was really good. I did not love the first hundred pages where all Olivia wants to do is touch Kora's hair. I got pretty tired of that fast.