Book Review: Echo North

Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The farther away I get from reading Echo North the more I dislike it. That's always a bad sign. Joanna Ruth Meyer uses old fairy tales/stories with themes from Beauty and the Beast, Tam Lynn and East of the Sun, West of the Moon. These three tales all have something in common; they marginalize women and there is some sort of 'beast' in the men. Obviously the original stories are not really suitable for today's society; so you would expect updates of them in a re-telling. That is not what Joanna Ruth Meyer gives us in Echo North.

Characters, Plot & Boring
There is perhaps one thing about Echo North I liked; the setting. An old forest that hides and changes where stands an odd house that has rooms 'stitched together' which begin to un-stitch themselves and fall away into oblivion. Cool right? Yep I agree. Except that's all that's really good for story set-up. Our characters are two dimensional at best, I almost liked our wolf but he was just deep freeze cold and gave me no reasons to care about him; and the plot of what is happening to our leading girl is just boring. Honestly I get it, she's trapped, he probably needs her to love him (as we know this is a beauty and the beast retelling) and he's a shapeshifter. Okay, all good but why do I care? Oh right, I'm never given a reason to care.

Really, Disney references?
The number one thing to NOT do when you write a retelling is to take aspects of the Disney version and pop it into your book. It's cheap, annoying and honestly just lazy. Meyer couldn't come up with a better dress than Belle's gold? She just had to include a chipped tea set? These moments feel forced and used as a crutch to avoid coming up with details by using the ones Disney has spoon-fed us our whole lives.

Predictable
Almost every moment of Echo North is predictable. From the wolf's mystery to our leading girls decisions to the really long and drawn out ending. I actually really enjoy retelling's. But I want re-told stories that use the themes and maybe some of the aspects of characters and place them into a new setting, story and situation. I know these stories; I don't want them regurgitated to me. Instead I want them to be uniquely interpreted. Amazing examples of this are; Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik and Heart's Blood by Juliet Marillier. In both these stories there is a connection with the characters so deep that you care about their romantic triumphs and falls. The curses or repercussions from the original stories exist but happen in unique and different ways. I also just read A Curse so Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer and was  pleasantly surprised by her interpretation of Beauty and the Beast. These are the kinds of re-tellings readers want. Not cardboard cut-out characters with stolen Disney flare. 

Overall
There was so much disappointment in this book. I'm not even glad I read it to the end to be honest. It's not often that I actually rate a book lower a week or two after reading it than before. Usually I increase my (possibly harsh) ratings but for Echo North I just can't come up with any reason why anyone should read it. And if I can't imagine a possibility in which I would recommend a book it's gotta go to two stars. It's rare I actually regret reading a book to completion; but this is an instance where I feel I wasted my time. Meyer probably has great ideas but she needs to spend more time connecting with her reader and less time worrying about including nods to any/all source material she may be borrowing from.

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

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