{Tour Stop} Echo by Alicia Wright Brewster: Review + Giveaway

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Genre: YA Dystopian
Published: April 25, 2013 by Dragonfairy Press
Length: 291 pages
Source: author (review copy)

“The countdown clock reads ten days until the end of the world. The citizens are organized. Everyone’s been notified and assigned a duty. The problem is . . . no one knows for sure how it will end.

Energy-hungry Mages are the most likely culprit. They travel 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 force, 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 Ashara’s death.”

What got me hooked on to read Echo is that it’s not the usual dystopian/sci-fi read. Usually in dystopian books, we get to read what happens AFTER the world has been crashed down, wiped out, etc. But in Echo, we get to read on HOW the world is going to end. Although I love the concept of the book, this one falls in the okay/good category read for me. There were times that I was confused, and times where it took me a while to understand what was happening.

The things that I love in this book is how the chapters are set up. It has a countdown on how many days left before the world ends (starting with day 10). I also like how there were fantasy elements in the book. I’ve never read a book that has sci-fi, dystopian, and fantasy all in one. The characters has elemental powers, and they use those powers to defeat the Mages which is the villain. The main character is relatable and easily understood. I didn’t have any problems with her, however, she didn’t really stand out with the supporting characters.

The things I didn’t like was that the pacing was bit slow for me so it took me longer to read it than I should’ve. As I mentioned before, there were times that I was confused with what was going on. I think it switches scenes too fast for its pace, so one moment I’m reading about flowers, but it quickly changes to trees. I didn’t know why the characters were killing the Mages if it was the end of the world. I mean, don’t you want to spend time with your loved ones if you know for sure that the end is coming? But then there was a twist! I wasn’t even aware of the twist until I read someone else’s review and she explained it.

I really liked the romance in this book. The two lovers starts off as not lovers or friends actually, but they were each other’s exes! Overall I recommend this to those who loves sci-fi books or if you’re looking for a fresh dystopian read.

There will be 2 separate giveaways. You can enter both.

1 ecopy of Echo (INTL) ENTER THE GIVEAWAY HERE (RAFFLECOPTER)

(1st prize) A print or ebook + $25 bookstore e-gift card; and
(2nd prize) A print or ebook + $10 bookstore e-gift card (INTL) ENTER THE GIVEAWAY HERE (RAFFLECOPTER)