Yzabel / April 19, 2013

Echo by Alicia Wright Brewster

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

A young adult science fiction adventure novel, this story features a strong, but flawed heroine and complex world building, along with themes of friendship, loss, faith, and tolerance–and the end of the world. With the countdown clock showing 10 days until the end of their planet, everyone has been notified and assigned a duty–but the problem is no one knows for sure how everything will end. Energy-hungry Mages are the most likely culprit, traveling 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 group, 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 something unexpected–Ashara’s death.

Review:

(Book provided by the author through ARR #88 in the We ♥ YA Books! group, in exchange for an honest review.)

What attracted me to Echo was the world it depicted—a world on the brink of destruction, more o nthe science-fiction than really dystopian side, with paranormal powers to boot. I liked this world the author wove through her story: close to ours in many aspects, yet with powers based on elements, each practitioner being able to perform feats based on his/her elements (people working with Air can move very fast, those with the power of Metal can bend, extend and control anything containing metal, and so on).

The concept of rewinding time, too, was a nice add-on: while it might seem at first sight that it made things too easy, it has its drawbacks, and it quickly becomes clear that it can’t be used as a good method to prevent the end of the world, only to delay it.

I’m still unsure about what to think of Ashara. On the one hand, she often came as whiny, as boasting “I want to save the world” only to run away at the first sight of real danger; on the other hand, considering how she was brought to the Ethereal task force with only ten days to learn to master powers she never knew she had, I don’t think I could blame her for being quite overwhelmed. Other characters, such as Rey or Krin, were more likeable, at least to me. And there was no love triangle. Things between Ashara and Loken were sometimes awkward, sure, but at least their respective relationships were otherwise clearly defined. (I’m no fan of love triangles for the sake of love triangles, if this makes sense; and too often, the YA genre revolves around such devices, as if they had become mandatory. So, kudos to the author, who wisely chose to avoid that.)

What I liked less in this book:
1) There are only 10 days left, but I didn’t really feel a sense of urgency until the last chapters. Also, Ashara’s progress seemed to go to fast past some point, especially if we consider the “quiet” circumstances she was in for most of the story (no spoiling here, but she wasn’t so often on the field, nor in actual training).
2) A few points in the story would have deserved more of an explanation, notably the part about Ashara’s father. I kind of got it, but… something was still lacking in my opinion.
3) The Elders’ decision about Ashara. Somehow, I’d have expected them to be more clever about that whole situation.
4) The temporary shift in points of view near the end, when all the other chapters were from Ashara’s. It would’ve worked better if the story had been told in the third person, and if the technique had been used from the start.

Because of those things that tended to annoy me, I’m giving “only” 3 stars to this book. Nevertheless, it remained an enjoyable read, written in a pleasant style, and I enjoyed the world built here by the author.