Echoes by Alice Reeds | Stranded on Confusing AF

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Echoes by Alice Reeds
Published by Entangled: Teen on August 7, 2018
Age Group & Genres: Mystery/Thriller, Young Adult
Format: eBook
Source: Publisher

They wake on a deserted island. Fiona and Miles, high school enemies now stranded together. No memory of how they got there. No plan to follow, no hope to hold on to.

Each step forward reveals the mystery behind the forces that brought them here. And soon, the most chilling discovery: something else is on the island with them.

Something that won't let them leave alive.

A copy of the book was provided for review purposes - thank you! Receiving a copy does not guarantee a positive review and therefore does not affect the opinion or content of the review.

Echoes by Alice Reeds is so confusing yet interesting at the exact same time.

Alice Reed’s latest novel is super vague in its synopsis with two teens (Fiona and Miles) applying for an internship and somehow waking up on a deserted island with no recollection of how they got there in the first place.

I can’t tell if my feelings are a good thing or a bad thing. I have so many thoughts and feelings about Echoes, so I’m going to run around in the middle. 🤔

Echoes is confusing AF

Reeds lays out this book in two time periods – Berlin and the island. Berlin is supposedly right before they got to the island, but I am left with so many questions of how they even got there.

Heck, I’m left with so many questions after finishing the novel. If that was Reeds’s intention, she did a phenomenal job with it, because I’m confused AF with a vague idea of what even happened.

There is instalove

You don’t even need to try to know that this is instalove and enemies to lovers on the spot. Fiona and Miles are high school enemies – they’ve hated each other from the moment they met and somehow ended up on an island together. Alone. What else is going to happen in the world of book tropes? 🤷

To be honest, this book makes you think

I don’t think I’ve walked away even one step ahead from each chapter without having to retrace my steps and think about what really happened. This might be why I’m still super confused – I’m constantly asking, “How did this happen?” and “Why did this happen?”

I had to step away a lot because I was confused. My brain was just pure:

I’m still lost and I have not returned from this lostness. (Maybe I was tired.)

It still kept you interested despite the confusion

I nearly DNFed this book, but I wanted to know what happened and what will happen at the end. Fortunately for fictional books, I don’t get killed for being curious.

The characters felt pretty flat and writing was meh

I didn’t care too much about Fiona and Miles – sure I want them alive, but do I care? Not really… I cared more about how they got there in the first and how they got from Berlin to a deserted island. All I got from the characters is:

1. Fiona is a champion kickboxer
2. Miles is a wealthy and popular kid at school
3. Their fathers didn’t really give a shit about them

Plus the writing! First of all, let’s set aside that confusion and focus on the writing by itself, which was okay, but definitely not the best. There was a lot of telling and descriptions that made me want to roll over and fall asleep than “I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.” And for me, meh writing + confusion = does not have the desire to continue the book.

Honestly, Echoes is just plain confusion, which is great if you want to be confused. I just felt like I had no answers by the end of the book when all I wanted were answers.