Reviews with content warning for Misogyny - The Echo Wife

Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

Complicated feelings abt this one. While I liked it somewhat + found it interesting, it was not by any means what I would call good. It ended with many unanswered questions, the pacing was strange, the main character wallowed in self loathing and pity the entire story, and there was A Lot of backstory that tied in only vaguely and overall contributed very little to the book itself.

The thing that bugged me most was the plot tho, or the lack of it. There were Things That Happened, all dutifully caused by one event or another, going on and on in a way that made sense. There were lots of Things That Happened As Results Of Other Things, lots of Small In-Between Goals, but there wasn’t any overarching plot at all. There was no Big Final Goal or Thing To Do before the story ended, they just wandered from one problem to the next until the author decided to end it. (Also, the fact that the main character was a clone, and this was almost never relevant except when the author wanted to point out that This Isn’t Something That’s Possible for a clone - except for this one it is 💕 This was not ever explained.)

Anyway !! This sounds overwhelmingly negative, but I did actually enjoy this book, though it got sad at the end. It was interesting and it held my attention, but it just wasn’t well written.

Content Warnings

kt2e56's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I’m speechless. Oh my GOD, this was so good. The sci-fi and mystery angle is interesting in and of itself, but what really pulled me in was the ethics of cloning interwoven throughout. I think it’s because I’m a survivor myself, but I really related to a lot of this book and my heart ached quite a bit for Evelyn who was replaced for not being perfect for her husband and of course Martine who was groomed and molded based on the whims of a deeply fucked up individual.

The parts where Martine can’t figure out what *she* wants versus what she was created to want were really just so chilling. Reading the acknowledgements at the end and discovering that the author is also a survivor helped process a lot of this for me and my instincts about why certain aspects of this book crawled under my skin.

Definitely give this one a read if you can.

Content Warnings

robinsong's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

cammiem8's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

A woman and her clone girlboss their way through hundreds of egregious ethics violations!

Content Warnings

msjenne's review

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

saykit14's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

mermaidsherbet's review

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challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

laurareads87's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

The plot of The Echo Wife follows Evelyn, a scientist engaged in research on the possibilities of human cloning, and Martine, a clone of Evelyn that, as the plot description for the book notes, is having a relationship with Evelyn's (ex-)husband. The story is told from Evelyn's point of view; as a character, she is brilliantly written but a very uncomfortable mind for the reader to inhabit: she describes her 'subjects,' the living, breathing, sentient human clones she has created, in such cold terms ('medical waste'), refusing to even acknowledge very real ethical complexities involved in cloning that the reader absolutely cannot avoid facing. At its heart, though, this book is about dehumanization -- the particular kinds of abuse that involve treating another as an instrument with a function rather than a person, that involve breaking another down with the clear intent of making them subservient rather than independent -- and, also, about survival. This was a very emotional read.

Content Warnings

emptychurches's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

marlinspirkhall's review

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dark emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I tore through this book in 3 days and absolutely loved it. It's not quite as dark as some reviews may make it seem, but it does deal with some rather heavy subject matter in a mature and sober manner.

I wrote down a few thoughts as I began reading the book, but found it so engrossing that I didn't take detailed notes. It was fantastic, and I can't wait to reread it at some point. For now, it will be on-loan to a friend until they finish it.

You always hear writing advice which suggests you should hook the reader with the first paragraph, which Gailey does effortlessly.

"My gown was beautiful. It was the kind of garment that looks precisely as expensive as it is. I did not hate it, because it was beautiful, and I did not love it, because it was cruel. I wore it because wearing it was the thing the night demanded of me."

Gailey has a wonderful way of using words, which makes me rethink the often-underutilised potential of the English language. It's always just succinct enough that it never crosses into the territory of purple prose.

"Her voice was high, light, warm. Nonthreatening. Hearing it was like swallowing a cheekful of venom."

- page 29

"But somehow Nathan- Nathan, the coward, the failure, who had abandoned industry for academia nearly a decade before, who shouldn't have been able to approach the level of work I was doing- somehow, Nathan had found a way to undermine that principle. To undermine *my* principles."

Page 55:

Page 55: "when I got to the kitchen, Nathan was still dead"

Me, out loud: wait, what?!

Fucking good plot twist, fucking well done.

"People always brought up the idea of feeding
bodies
to pigs, as if there were pig farms around every goddamn corner."

Thank you, Gailey. There's an entire tumblr thread out there, to which I will be using this quote as a "gotcha".

The way that Gailey imbues several tropes into their work is skillfully done, too. Many reviews said they transformed the "cheating spouse" trope with a sci-fi twist, but, really, this book was about generational abuse. How it echoes down through your family and sets its roots in you, and makes you wonder fi you're going to internalise and repeat the pattern too... Which is why it's so cathartic when the book ends with:

"I'm not a monster.

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Sexism, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

Minor: Child abuse, Physical abuse, and Abandonment

Body Horror:

One of the "failed clones" which is buried in the back yard has a "spiral mandible" which is described in detail. Murder:

Nathan attacks Martine and she kills him in self-defense. It is later revealed he was trying to murder her, in addition to his plans to murder Evelyn. Oh, and he also has the bodies of 12 "failed" clones in the back yard. 11 of these are "growth rate" failures, and appear to have died on their own, but one body- the final one- was "perfect". The only thing he appears to have objected to was her personality.

Sexism, Misogyny: Nathan "designs" Martine to be docile and obedient. "He stammered his way through it, an entirely unreasonable request. One that was based in his constant certainty that I would, someday, change my mind about wanting children. He had always acted as though my decision not to have a baby were a temporary lapse, a delay. He had always assumed that all women came with an innate understanding of and desire for children- at least, the old Nathan had-

and so it was not a surprise to me when he asked if I would help him raise Violet."

Suicide:

In order to allow Martine to live a life free from Nathan 2, Evelyn and Martine dig up the body of a clone, and pose her in the wardrobe as if she has hanged herself. It could be an upsetting scene to some readers.

This also leads to (Abandonment):

a description of them leaving baby Violet behind, which made me burst into tears. However, thankfully, she is reunited with her mother later.

Domestic abuse, Physical Abuse, Emotional Abuse: This is made explicit in the narrative without *being* explicit- we see that Evelyn and her mother fear her father, and it is strongly hinted that

he broke Evelyn's wrist when she was nine years old. He also feels no remorse for this, and rolls his eyes when he sees that her arm is in a cast.

Child abuse: In addition to the above,

Evelyn's father switches between being outright neglectful of her and smothering her with his expectations and rules. He also grabs her face roughly when she is only six years old. Her mother trains her how to sneak around the house without making the stairs creak so that she doesn't wake her father. She is regularly seen running away from her father in flashbacks. She resents her mother, in part, and fears becoming her father while still respecting him.

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Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey

valent1ne's review

kt2e56's review against another edition

robinsong's review against another edition

cammiem8's review against another edition

msjenne's review

saykit14's review

mermaidsherbet's review

laurareads87's review against another edition

emptychurches's review

marlinspirkhall's review