Review: Echoes

Title: Echoes
Author: Laura Tisdall
Page Count: 298
Amazon
My Rating: 4.5 TURTLES: A really great read, I highly recommend
*I was given this book in exchange for an honest review

Description:

“There is truth to be shared. Let us begin…”

Volatile mathematical genius Mallory Park is living two lives. In one, she is balancing senior year with looking after her little brother and troubled ex-Marine father; in the other, she spends her nights glued to her laptop, breaking into some of the world’s most secure systems as the hacker Echo Six.

As part of a corruption-exposing cyber network called the Forum, Mallory is far more at ease among the codes and hidden identities of her online world than she has ever been in the real one, but when other hackers start to go missing, she finds herself caught up in a web of secrets that could have repercussions far beyond both.

When anyone can be a name on a screen, how do you know who to trust?

Review:

I loved this book! It is a suspenseful, intriguing YA novel with many twists and turns that surprised me. One thing I especially loved were the two main characters, Mallory and Warden. They had such distinct personalities and back stories that added a lot of depth to their character as well as their relationship. I also really liked how their different perspectives brought up some interesting moral discussions within the story. Another thing I really liked about their relationship, and especially their romance, was that it felt like it went at a realistic pace. Many YA novels fall into the insta-love trope to one degree or another, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it was nice to see a romance that was slower to build.

I also really enjoyed the hacking aspect of this story and the action. I remember thinking as I was reading it that it would make for a good movie or premise for a television show.

One thing that took me out of the story a bit, though, was the fact that Mallory uses a lot of British slang unironically, which didn’t make a lot of sense to me since she is an American who’s never lived in England. I know it’s because the book is written by an English writer and all the colloquialisms probably weren’t taken out in the editing process. (I know I’d have an impossible time knowing every single saying I was using that people wouldn’t say in England).

Overall, I would highly recommend this book. It does deal with some more mature topics, so I’d probably say later middle school on up readers would be the best fit for this. As far as I can tell it’s a standalone, and it’s a fast-paced read, so the story goes by very quickly and you don’t have to have the agony of waiting for the next installment. But that might not keep you from wanting more.

Books this reminded me of:

A Girl Named Digit (Digit #1)

Double Digit (Digit #2)

Disclosure: this post contains links to an affiliate program (Amazon), for which I receive a few cents if you make purchases.