Friday, December 7, 2012

Review: 'Echo' by Alyson Noel (The Soul Seekers #2)

THE DETAILS:
Pages: 352
Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Fantasy
Release Date: 20/11/12
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
RRP: $16.99
Received from publisher for review.

THE BLURB:
Daire Santos has already saved her grandmother's life and her soul. But at a cost: the Richter family has been let loose in the Lowerworld. Daire and her boyfriend Dace Richter must work together to find them before chaos ensues and the balance between good and evil is destroyed.

As their relationship deepens, Dace's evil brother Cade grows stronger than ever, building his power and forcing Daire and Dace to confront the horrifying prophecy that has brought them all together. It will leave Daire no choice but to claim her true destiny as Seeker, but only by making an unthinkable sacrifice.

MY REVIEW:
As far as quality goes 'Echo' is one of the few sequels I have read that stays on par with the first book in the series. It's not better than 'Fated', but it's not worse either. A lot of the things I liked/disliked about the first book were the same in this one, but like a sequel should, this book involved a lot more developments of the story and the characters. I'm not exactly what you'd call a fan of the 'The Soul Seekers' series (so far), but I have somewhat enjoyed the first two books.

As far as the similarities go: I loved the writing (it was poetic, descriptive, almost rhythmic at times), the genuine romance, the kick-ass female and I disliked the slow, inconsistent pace. The pace however, did increase once I'd read the Courtney Love reference-Thank goodness for authors/characters with awesome music taste- And, I finished the book pretty quickly after that.

Like I said earlier there was a lot more development in this book. I really appreciated the fact that I got to learn more about some  of the "minor" characters (lita, Jennika, the elders), as well as Dace, who of course we want to learn more about! I also thought it was pretty cool that we got to learn more about Daire's life in Hollywood. I had almost forgotten that she was even famous until one of her friends started a conversation with her about it.

Another new thing in the sequel was the alternating point-of-view the story was told from. It was cool to see things from Dace's point-of-view. I found it interesting to see how similar Dace and Daire were and amusing that they both wanted to save each other. I don't see a lot of this in teen fantasy novels. Obviously the alternating point-of-views have a bad side too; I didn't like the repetition that occurred at the beginning/ending of chapters. I think this is where the book becomes a little predictable and un-interesting.

Also, what was with that ending?! Just like 'Fated', I found myself thinking "What The?" reading over it again. Hopefully the next book will clarify the ending of this one. I honestly do not know how the series can continue if what I think happened actually happened.

Overall, 4.5/5 stars. Same as 'Fated'. I liked it. It was good. It was interesting.

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Natalie

1 comment:

Katja Weinert said...

I liked the sound of this, will have to pick it up. Thanks for sharing.