Where Echoes Die
Ratings6
Average rating3.7
3.5 ⭐️
once again feeling absolutely devastated and seen by a horror(ish) novel about grief
Rating: 3.1 leaves out of 5Characters: 3/5 Cover: 4/5Story: 4/5Writing: 4/5Horror: .5/5Genre: Horror/Mystery/Thriller/Sci-fi/LGBT/RomanceType: AudiobookWorth?: YeahHated Disliked Meh It Was Okay Liked Loved FavoritedWant to thank Netgalley and publishers for giving me the chance to listen to this book.For the people who know me, they know I don't like YA. I am very turned off by the genre BUT this was kind of well done. Yes, Becca has her YA moments but given what she has gone through I can't fault her for it, plus you know... her age and all. Though I usually say that writers need to stop making their characters stupid. Just because they are a teen doesn't mean they don't have freaking brains. These adult AF writers need to learn that shit real fast.Courtney is a prime example of having a teen be a teen but have brains. Kudos. You might be asking well, if you liked it so much why is it so low rating? Well, as you can tell it is the horror part of it all. I wouldn't call this a horror. I'd call it a mystery thriller. I get the concept of it all could be scary but in the end I am not really scared at all. Also, reactions. BOY LEMME TELL YA. How she treated her sister that WHOLE time and how her sister was a WEE bit mad but MEH about it all? That isn't a normal reaction nor can it be justified. I was gravely disappointed in that whole bit. This could have been an easy 4.5 or even 5 if it hadn't have been for those two things.In the end, is it worth? YES! If you like things like A Cure for Wellness I HIGHLY suggest this book to you.
This was a refreshing and compelling read! The main character is very relatable and flawed in ways that make her endearing. The story line draws you in and makes you want to go through the adventure with the characters. While it is a bit predictable, it is so well written that it is forgivable. The narrator does a great job bringing the story to life and keeping your interest. Definitely a read and audiobook worth your time!
3 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews
Summary
Beck is on the trail of her journalist late mother's last story, and has both lied to her father about it, and dragged younger sister Riley along for the ride to the mysterious town of Backravel.
Review
I only recently came across Courtney Gould's first book, The Dead and the Dark. I liked it, and when I saw this, I picked it up.
My fear after reading The Dead and the Dark had been that Gould would write a sequel and just keep following the same characters. I didn't feel they could support the weight of a series. I'm happy to say that Gould didn't do that; the story is all new. Unfortunately, while the characters are nominally different, there's a great deal of sameness to them – the first book had a somewhat generic group of muddled teens meeting a troubled outsider who falls for one of them, and this book ... has a somewhat generic group of muddled teens meeting a troubled outsider who falls for one of them. In both cases against a background of murky ‘bad stuff' and problematic parents. The characters are so similar that early on I kept wanting to check whether it was somehow a sequel.
I felt the actual horror of Gould's first novel was the weakest part, and again I felt that in this book the mysterious power (some sort of military site pollution with unlikely effects) was poorly supported. While, as in the first book, the characters were stronger (and similar), I also this time found them very frustrating. The protagonist, Beck, not only seems to have no care at all for her younger sister (but is not really presented that way), but consistently – in the course of her investigation – fails to follow up on lead after lead after lead. The story ends up being a jerky, start-stop process, constantly derailed by ... it's never clear exactly what.
In the end, I decided that the book was not intended as a straight novel at all, but as an allegory about ... loss? depression? I'm not sure. Read that way, I give it a little more room. As a novel, it didn't really work for me. Gould is a talented writer, but I'm thinking the stories she wants to tell are just not to my taste.
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.