Reviews with content warning for Sexism - The Echo Wife

Reviews tagging 'Sexism'

shakakan's review

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dark tense fast-paced

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

3.25

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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

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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.

trailmixraisins's review

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dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

A creepy story of a marriage gone very, very wrong. It feels realistic and natural as if it could occur within the next five or ten years. The flaws of humankind are reflected in the science of cloning and its moral implications. So absurd it's almost funny.

Content Warnings

booksthatburn's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-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

THE ECHO WIFE gripped me from the first line, using calm and precise language to build a horrific tale of abuse and death. Every revelation drops like a stone into water, raising the level by inches until it feels like it can hold no more.

This is a well-paced thriller which doles out disturbing news just often enough to be unsettling. Evelyn's descriptions consistently bury the lede, pondering first the reactions and consequences to some very important piece of information before finally circling back to say what caused the fuss in the first place. It reshapes the weight of these moments to emphasize how dealing with each horrible (and sometimes not so horrible) event affects those who remain. It's disassociation in book form, as if Evelyn isn't ready to look at what's going on and must approach everything at an angle in order to have any chance of reaching it at all. I especially love the complex discussions about the ethics of cloning, the difference between what Nathan did and what Evelyn does, if there is one.

It's about healing, clawing back by inches what was taken and filling in new things where the old bits are lost forever. Figuring out what bits of Evelyn and Martine belong to themselves, leaving space for them to want different things even though they started out as the same person. It's shaped by the absence of an abuser, the gap left behind by someone who demanded that every thought fit his needs.

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reading_bug's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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thechiaraface's review

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challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

5.0

To start, this book is a bit genre-bending - it could fall under sci-fi, domestic/psychological thriller, horror, or literary fiction in my opinion. The premise sounds kind of humorous (a man leaves his wife for a clone of her that he created to be 'nicer'), but this book is anything but light & humorous. This book is dark and tense and full of commentary. This book is exactly what I want from a speculative/sci-fi thriller, it explores these big ideas from a different angle than realistic fiction ever could. And this book explores so much, it explores autonomy, individualism, power, misogyny, gender expectations, grooming, personhood (what makes a person a person), the cyclical nature of trauma, nature vs. nurture, and the darkness within human nature. I found this book entirely engrossing. The commentary and exploration of these big ideas did not get in the way of the plot, pacing or story. This book does have plot but the story leans more towards character-driven than plot-driven. This isn't one of those wild-ride twisty-turny shocking thrillers. This story more just slowly gets more and more chillingly f*ed up and through that you really get to understand the characters and explore the darker side of human nature. All the characters are interesting and nuanced and well-developed. Overall, I really really liked this but it does have a lot of content warnings so check those out of you want/need them.

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Reviews tagging 'Sexism'

The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey

shakakan's review

emptychurches's review

marlinspirkhall's review

trailmixraisins's review

booksthatburn's review against another edition

reading_bug's review

thechiaraface's review