Our Last Echoes - Review

Author: Kate Alice Marshall

Genre: Paranormal / Young Adult

Format: Hardback

Pages: 416

The cover for Our Last Echoes is what originally caught my eye and then the tag line at the bottom. Then I saw it being compared to the TV show Twin Peaks and I was completely sold. Both these things being said I did go into this book not completely sure what I was getting myself into, and I think this time that was one of the reasons I enjoyed this book so much. After finishing this I would say this book is more LOST than Twin Peaks.

Our Last Echoes doesn't ease you into this story. It starts you in the middle before jumping back to the present day. Which does grab your attention from the word go, but also gave me a bit of whiplash. It took me a bit to get my footing with this book, and a part of me thinks that while Our Last Echoes is a standalone book, it connects to another book by Kate Alice Marshall, The Rules of Vanishing. Both of these books not only exist in the same world but by the end of the book connect. You don't have to read one before the other.

I will say the story does move rather quickly, and it's hard to find a place to stop for things like sleep and work. Every time you think you've found a spot to walk away from for a few minutes, something else happened. I also liked how we got back the story of what happened to Sophie's mother. Joy's story is told through a transcript of a video that was recorded at the time of the incident. What I liked about this, is you got to experience Joy's story just as much as Sophie's. It didn't become dry or glossed over. You were with Joy through it all, and it connected to Sophie's story and affected the outcome of the end of the book itself.

The plot for this book is one of my favorite scary tropes of Doppelgangers. I liked the way that Kate Alice Marshall morphed that trope with another of my favorites. Altogether I thought it morphed into a wonderful story that kept me turning the pages because I wanted to know what was happening on this island, how were keeping it a secret, and why were we not making a bigger deal of the fact it was spreading. As you read you start to ask more and more questions that slowly get answered than there are more questions. 

I will admit I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish this book. The last hundred pages are so were hard to put down as all the answers started to come together to one explosive ending. 

And that ending, I loved it. With books like Our Last Echoes, I like when it leaves with more than just a few questions left unanswered right at the end. That you don't really know a handful of things. Kate Alice Marshall did set it up so there could be another book series to tie up a few things that were brought to light about another character, but things with our main character were tied up at the end.

My only real issue, and what kept this from a five-star was read, was that I didn't get connect with a single character in this book. They aren't terrible characters, there just wasn't one that I connected with on a personal level. Well, there was the crow Moriarty. I was really worried about him at the end, but as for the human characters. Yeah, I don't think I would have been too overly sad if the main three had died.

But, the crazy twisted story that Kate Alice Marshal tells sucked me right in. I spent the whole book just needing to know the hell was going on with this island! This means I have added The Rule of Vanishing to my TBR, and I'd read another book set in this universe.

HAPPY READING!!