Echo by Alicia Wright Brewster
291 pages – Fiction,
Young Adult, Science Fiction
April 25, 2013 –Dragonfairy
Press
Facebook: Yes
Twitter:
@aliciawbrewster
Source: Xpresso Book Tours
Purpose: Review
Disclaimer: A
copy of this galley was given to me, free, in exchange for my honest opinion
FromGoodreads: The
countdown clock reads ten days until the end of the world. The citizens are
organized. Everyone's been notified and assigned a duty. The problem is . . .
no one knows for sure how it will end. Energy-hungry Mages are the most
likely culprit. They travel toward a single location from every corner of the
continent. Fueled by the two suns, each Mage holds the power of an element:
air, earth, fire, metal, water, or ether. They harness their powers to draw
energy from the most readily available resource: humans. Ashara has been
assigned to the Ethereal task force, made up of human ether manipulators and
directed by Loken, a young man with whom she has a complicated past. Loken and
Ashara bond over a common goal: to stop the Mages from occupying their home and
gaining more energy than they can contain. But soon, they begin to suspect that
the future of the world may depend on Ashara's death.
My Thoughts:
First, I
have to say that the cover is awesome! What can I say? This was an amazing
read. It does take a little while to start hitting the key points. So long that
I was beginning to think that I was going to hate the ending –thinking that it
would be rushed or cut off. There is really only one word to describe the
ending –perfect. I have to say that
despite my doubts, I was completely satisfied with the ending.
I
really liked the Ashara, Loken and Rey. I liked Krin in the beginning, but I
was disappointed in her at the end. I get it, I really do, but I guess I
expected more from her. I was definitely interested in this world and how it
all worked from the beginning. My only
complaint, and it is a small one, would be that there wasn’t enough sensory
details when it came to the setting. That
made it difficult for me to visualize so
I ended up inserting what was familiar to me. There were some areas that this
didn’t apply, but as an overall thing I wanted more sensory. As far as the characters, most had some
distinctive features and all of the primary characters had distinct voices.
Moving on to the actual story. . .I
had a very hard time putting this book down. Even with the doubts about the
ending, I couldn’t stop reading. Even though
the mystery was slowly unraveled (some may say that it had a nice even pace) I
had to have more. In a book world where we want everything now and then
complain it all happened too fast, Brewster’s timing was near perfect! (Just
because I can acknowledge the problem doesn’t mean I’m not going to be
impatient…)There were enough given to keep you interested in what was really going on without distracting you
from the action.
The action and interactions between
the characters were at times filled with tension and at other times filled with
warmth. This made me really care about what was going to happen to them, I was
able to connect with them emotionally.
There was humor, romance, mystery and the unique role of magic. I am so
happy to see the tension between faith and science in this work. This is
something that could have gone horribly horribly wrong, but it worked out so
well.
The ending was my favorite
part. After everything I witnessed on
the journey to such a pivotal moment, it was nice not to be let down. I was
holding my breath right along with the characters (ok so I may have been alone
on that one, but still). The ending was
completely satisfying, and while there was a mere suggestion of things to come,
I would be completely okay if it stopped here. It was full and satisfying, but
I wouldn’t hesitate to revisit this world if given the chance.
5 stars *****
A 2013 favorite
Always Shine,
Starr K
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