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doxy_cycline 's review for:
The Echo Wife
by Sarah Gailey
dark
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was not the worst book I have ever read but I did not enjoy it overly much. It has a lot of the same sorts of problems that Light From Uncommon Stars had: The way the protagonist doesn't act like a real person, the way the writing beats basic ideas to death, even ones that don't make much sense, the way EVERY other human in the book is out to get the protagonist just to underline the idea that the protagonist was and is abused, at the expense of resembling the real world.
This was not a compelling main character to me. She starts out cartoonishly evil, then we're given a couple background reasons for why she is that way, and then the book starts to flirt with the idea of an arc, and I guess I'm actually kind of glad it didn't happen because nothing would have been enough. Unfortunately at the end of the book we're in this weird sort of middle ground where the main character is too awful to take seriously, but too serious to be entertaining.
I don't know what this book wants me to take from it. Hurt people hurt people? Come on. I feel the same way about this portrayal of abuse and survival as I did in Uncommon Stars. If you're going to write about abuse and survivors of abuse, do it justice, don't just slap down caricatures. It's annoying and sort of insulting.
The premise is interesting. I still sort of wish Evelyn had ended up being a clone. The prose reads super fast and would have been even faster with all the redundant parts removed. There were some creative uses of imagery. I didn't like it but I didn't hate it. I probably will not read other books by this author. Wonder what Mona Awad is up to.
This was not a compelling main character to me. She starts out cartoonishly evil, then we're given a couple background reasons for why she is that way, and then the book starts to flirt with the idea of an arc, and I guess I'm actually kind of glad it didn't happen because nothing would have been enough. Unfortunately at the end of the book we're in this weird sort of middle ground where the main character is too awful to take seriously, but too serious to be entertaining.
I don't know what this book wants me to take from it. Hurt people hurt people? Come on. I feel the same way about this portrayal of abuse and survival as I did in Uncommon Stars. If you're going to write about abuse and survivors of abuse, do it justice, don't just slap down caricatures. It's annoying and sort of insulting.
The premise is interesting. I still sort of wish Evelyn had ended up being a clone. The prose reads super fast and would have been even faster with all the redundant parts removed. There were some creative uses of imagery. I didn't like it but I didn't hate it. I probably will not read other books by this author. Wonder what Mona Awad is up to.