A review by thechiaraface
The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

To start, this book is a bit genre-bending - it could fall under sci-fi, domestic/psychological thriller, horror, or literary fiction in my opinion. The premise sounds kind of humorous (a man leaves his wife for a clone of her that he created to be 'nicer'), but this book is anything but light & humorous. This book is dark and tense and full of commentary. This book is exactly what I want from a speculative/sci-fi thriller, it explores these big ideas from a different angle than realistic fiction ever could. And this book explores so much, it explores autonomy, individualism, power, misogyny, gender expectations, grooming, personhood (what makes a person a person), the cyclical nature of trauma, nature vs. nurture, and the darkness within human nature. I found this book entirely engrossing. The commentary and exploration of these big ideas did not get in the way of the plot, pacing or story. This book does have plot but the story leans more towards  character-driven than plot-driven. This isn't one of those wild-ride twisty-turny shocking thrillers. This story more just slowly gets more and more chillingly  f*ed up and through that you really get to understand the characters and explore the darker side of human nature.  All the characters are interesting and nuanced and well-developed. Overall, I really really liked this but it does have a lot of content warnings so check those out of you want/need them. 
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