Echo

by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

• ASIN: B07JH7XX1W
• Publish Date: 2019
• Publish Status: Unknown
• Format: eBook (Kindle)
• Pages: 616
• Language: English

Reviews

[Quirky Cat]

There are a lot of reasons why I really wanted to read Echo by Thomas Olde Heuvelt. First, the cover reminded me of Wool, a book (well, series) I've been thinking a lot about lately. For another, the opening scene reminded me of a popular graphic novel/television series.

Nick Grevers wakes from a coma to learn the bad news: Augustin is missing and presumed dead. He went missing in the same climbing accident that put Nick in a coma, so he can understand why people have such glum assumptions on the matter.

Yet Nick knows the truth – a truth he refuses to share with anyone. He can't talk about how he and Augustin were drawn to the mountains as if by magic. Nor can he speak of the thing that was waiting for them when they finally arrived.

"Don't you know the stories? Death birds are said to guide the souls of fallen climbers out of this world. If you believe what the old guides and mountain folk say, at least."

Fans of horror should make a note of Echo. This novel won't disappoint; I am thrilled to say. It's dark and tense, building slowly yet steadily towards a harrowing climax. It's the sort of novel that sticks with you. At least, it's going to stick with me. I just know it.

Admittedly, I think that the introduction is the most substantial part of Echo. To be clear – I don't mean that to sound like a negative. It immediately sucked me in and captivated me with its mystery. I almost wonder if the mystery would have been better left, you know?

The pacing for Echo is a bit slow, but that works well with the horror elements included here. That, combined with character-driven moments and many twists, kept me invested. I also really appreciated the representation in Echo. We need to see more of that.

Thanks to Tor Nightfire and #NetGalley for making this book available for review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Read more reviews over at Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

[pamela]

Given how much I loved Hex, I desperately wanted to love Echo, Heuvelt's second book to be translated into English. While it had moments of beautiful prose and was, at times, wonderfully atmospheric, this one just didn't really grab me.

Echo had a rough beginning. It didn't immediately grab me, and sometimes the translation felt clunky. From the outset, my impression of the book was skewed. Despite picking up at around the 10% mark as the atmosphere and mystery began to build, my initial impression stayed with me, making the rest of the book sadly underwhelming.

The characters were interesting, and the concept was strong, but Echo's big problem was that it was at least twice as long as it should have been. By the halfway mark, the plot began to plod and feel repetitive. There was only so much mileage we could get out of what is, fundamentally, a straightforward horror plot. Nothing wrong with simplicity - but because of the book's length, it just didn't deliver on that simplicity in a way that felt satisfying. Quite frankly, I was bored for at least half the time I spent reading it.

I would love to read Heuvelt's work in his native Dutch, as I feel like there was probably a lot missing in the translation. At times, the book felt overly simplistic, with odd little shortening quirks that felt unnatural in English but might have worked in Dutch. When I speak German, the diminutives I use naturally with friends and family work in the context of that language but come across as childish or trite if I try to use them with friends or family in English. Echo had little moments like that when I just couldn't get past how jarring some of the language choices felt. Translating fiction is a thankless task, and I don't envy those who have to do it - there's simply no way to please everyone. And not reading Dutch, I have absolutely no basis of comparison for how it reads compared to the original - this is just the impression I got where things just read as a little "off" for lack of a better word.

I would have rated Echo a bit higher for the concept and atmosphere. It wasn't a terrible book by any stretch, but I certainly didn't connect with it in a way that I often do with horror novels. While the book had a general air of spookiness and a fright-adjacent ambience, Echo's extreme length made it feel more boring and meandering than it should have.