Book Review: Echo by Alyson Noel

Release Date: November 12, 2012
Author: Alyson Noel
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Length: 340 pages

"A rush of romance will sweep you away in this hauntingly mystical read. I'm already as addicted to Daire and Dace as I was to Ever and Damen!" –Justine magazine

She inherited a magical destiny—and a mission to stop a powerful family of dark sorcerers. She never expected to fall in love with one of them.

There’s still so much Daire Santos has to learn about being the last Soul Seeker….and about herself.  As her magical training becomes more intense, so does her relationship with Dace.  But when she learns that his connection to the evil Richter family goes far deeper than she ever imagined, she begins to question if love really can conquer all.

Dace is painfully aware that he wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the Richters’ dark magic—and now his brother Cade is determined to use his love for Daire against him.  Dace is willing to sacrifice anything to protect the girl he loves —including his own life.  But will Daire allow it?  And what if defeating Cade costs not only his life, but his soul too?

Enchanting, haunting, romantic, Echo is the second book in the Soul Seekers series by #1 New York Times bestselling author Alyson Noël!"

Review:

Characters: The two main narrators for this installment are Daire and Dace. Daire Santos has come a long way in the weeks since she failed to sacrifice her grandmother's soul for the greater good. She's trying to clean up the mess she made and set the Lower-world right. Daire struggles with a lot of things in this installment, namely that Cade has become even darker of an adversary, so much so that she does what she can to remove him from all of the worlds. She continues her training with Paloma and learns a great deal from the elements that she merges her energy with. Dace has a set of challenges all his own, he finally learns the dark truth of his conception and has to face it head on and train with Leftfoot to gain the power to defeat Cade and the undead Richters. Their mutual growth is mainly anchored on their training, of which they both claim to emerge stronger and wiser.

Romance: Dace and Daire's relationship is at an all time high when this installment starts off, but they soon find out that their love actually hinders them in the fight against Cade and his undead horde. The thing about Dace and Daire's relationship tat I have a problem with is that even though I get that they're destined and fated, I don't get how their love is so strong after only around a month and a half of actually knowing each other. It seems a bit fast, and their love for each other borders on co-dependency. Not to mention that now Dace's old flame Phyre, no pun intended, has come back to town putting a strain on their relationship.

World-Building: In this installment we really get to know what Dace being "the Echo" means. We learn the ramifications it will have on his relationship with Dare and how connected he and Cade truly are. We learn more about Chepi's encounter with Leandro the night she concieved Dace and Cade, and we learn of what her father Jolan did in revenge that led to his death. We also get to see how the chaos in the Lower-world affects the Middle-world now that some time has past. Lastly we get to see som Native legends come to life and see what that may mean for the future.

Predictability: This installment wasn't all too predictable, I only caught on to a few things and the things I was surprised to see I had completely theories for. I was especially surprised to see what the whole Echo thing meant, especially since it plays such an important part in this installment. I'm not talking what it specifically means since that was pretty discernible,  but the mystic ties that come with being someone's Echo and for someone being yours are extremely interesting.

Ending: The ending was great, the final part was like an epilogue in which multiple characters narrated the events surrounding them at one particularly appalling point. I was utterly shocked with what happened and all I can wonder is what the heel is next. This installment seemed so much like a finale to the series but through a sudden twist in the end I'm not sure what's going to happen. All I can say is that i cannot wait for Mystic to come out in the Spring.

Overall, I'll give this 4.5 out of 5 stars, it was a bit slow in the beginning but picked up rather quickly. 

P.S. Sorry this wasn't up earlier today I got almost to the end and then fell asleep. Anyway, If you haven't checked out my Through the Ever Night giveaway go check it out on my Contests/Giveaways page. If you don't want to enter or can't enter because you don't live in the U.S. then you can still follow my blog using the button that says "Join this Site" in the sidebar because I do have a couple of international competitions coming up and don't forget to follow me on Twitter @FlyeZachary93.