Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer Review

 Hey Foreverbookers,

How are you all? I hope you’re well! 

I’ve just finished Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer, which I enjoyed. It was slower than I thought it would be, which is why it took me so long to get through (nearly a month) but it was good. It read more like literary fiction than a YA novel to me, to be honest. I’m therefore giving Echo North 3 stars!

Echo North is an East Of The Sun, West Of The Moon retelling, which I haven’t read. However, the themes of Echo North were far more adult than I thought they’d be. I thought Echo North was a middle grade novel, which it certainly isn’t. While there’s no sexual content or bad language, but there’s talk of death and horrible, evil characters, as well as depressing themes throughout. It isn’t a happy novel. 

Echo is a young, naive girl at the beginning but come the end she’s grown into a young woman. The first part of novel takes place in a Russian like country, where Echo’s father, a bookseller falls in love with Donia, an evil, selfish woman who wants nothing but money lavished on her. Echo has to leave her house because Donia orders her to. She meets a wolf, and they’d where the true story starts…

I read Echo North for one readathon. They was: 

Reading Rivalry - An Adventure - There is certainly an adventure element to Echo North, however it was quite boring, unfortunately. I wasn’t chomping at the bit to read it, which is on of the reasons why I think it took so long to finish.

Prism Oracle Card - I chose the Growth card at random in February. Echo certainly grows to accept herself by the end of Echo North.

Spoilers Below,

“My scars whitened as I got older—they didn’t fade. I learned very early that in the old tales of magic the wicked were always ugly and scarred, the good beautiful; I was not beautiful, but I wanted to be good, and after a while I couldn’t bear to read those stories anymore.

The villagers avoided me. My fellow students crossed themselves when I walked by, or openly laughed at me. They said the Devil had claimed my face and would someday come back for the rest of me. They said he wouldn’t have marked me if I didn’t already belong to him.”

Echo, our main female character was scarred by a wolf as a child. She’s very depressed about her appearance at the beginning of the novel. She doesn’t like how she looks and is lonely because no one wants to be around her apart from her father and brother, who of course still love her.

“The wind teased through my hair, and it smelled of earth and wood and springtime. Ahead of me the forest teemed with life, and away to the west the sun began to slide down the rim of the sky. I was staring into the woods, my eyelids growing heavy when I caught a flash of movement between the trees. All at once I saw a huge, white wolf staring at me from the border of the forest, and I swear to God in heaven that his eyes met mine, that his eyes knew mine. I had a sudden wild thought that it was the same wolf I had rescued all those years ago from the trap, and I rose involuntarily to my feet.”

Echo thinks the White Wolf is the same one she rescued from a trap years before, and who marked her face when she was younger. Is this the case? You’ll need to read to find out! 

“I found the evenings at the cottage increasingly difficult. Donia was a great cook, but her taste in ingredients ran as expensive as her taste in everything else, and I was forever trying to persuade her to buy cheaper ones.” Donia is a horrible character as I said above. All she cares about is herself. Echo just wants a loving, caring mother, because hers died after she was born but she gets Donia, who is a selfish woman that wants everything she can’t have, like expensive food as is highlighted above. Donia makes Echo leave the house that Peter, Echo’s father bought when he married Donia. Not having anywhere to go, Echo goes into the forest where she sees the white wolf again. The white wolf brings her to his house. He gives her a room. And tells her that the house is magical. 

“Icy currents of air whispered past my neck. Laughter and music echoed faintly from behind some of the doors, while from others came the scent of wine and honey and autumn flowers, or the winter tang of a crisp starry night after a snowfall. The whole house seemed to brim with memory and sorrow, with lost dreams and forgotten joy. I ached with a sadness that was my own.

Magic teemed around me—I didn’t know how to process it all. Part of me still wondered if I was freezing to death and delusional in the wood, but it was all too real.” Echo really doesn’t understand the house. It seems to be alive. Why and how is it alive? You’ll need to read Echo North to find out!

The house is a character in and of itself and has many rooms, Echo’s bedroom and a magical bauble room, which is the main room the novel takes place in, I’d say. The bauble room is where Echo finds book-mirrors. These are indeed magical portals into fictional worlds that feel real. Here, in one of these Echo finds a young man called Hal, and in another a young girl called Mokosh. Who are Hal and Mokosh? Are they good or evil? What connection do they have to Echo? You’ll need to read to find out for yourself. 

I don’t want to spoil anything else that happens in the novel because it’s very episodic and I feel that spoiling one thing will lead me to spoiling the whole plot. What I will say though, is there is a fantastical twist with a battle at the end that I really enjoyed reading. I was thinking who was going to win, throughout. Will good prevail? You’ll need to read for yourself. After this battle the very end of Echo North felt extremely rushed. I would have liked for there to have been a few more chapters of wrap up.  

The part that I enjoyed most about Echo North was definitely the characters. We’ve got them all, from the good, to the selfish, to the selfless, to the damn right evil. I thought the author did a great job of capturing each of these emotions. 

Overall, I’m giving Echo North 3 stars because while it was good, it was VERY slow and it didn’t need to be so long winded, either. The part that I wanted more from didn’t have it. The only part that I really enjoyed was the second half and only the end of that. While it definitely isn’t the worst book I’ve read, it’s not the best either. The characters were definitely what saved the story for me. I wasn’t that interested in the plot, apart from the battle at the end as I’ve said. 

I’m rereading GLINT by Raven Kennedy next, which I can’t WAIT to do! I might add a few notes fit my previous GLINT review, like I did with GILD in February, but it won’t be a new one.