Full review: https://fujoreads.tumblr.com/post/751380744419573760/the-echo-wife-by-sarah-gailey-review 

Overall, this was a very enjoyable read after a reading slump. The audiobook was especially nice to listen to, with the whole pacing and personality to the narrator’s voice.

I wasn’t expecting to become friendly with who I thought at first to be one of the main antagonists, and I certainly wasn’t expecting such character development from our MC. All done and said, this was a great read! 

I really struggled on and off with finishing this book but ultimately I landed on the side of liking it. A lot of the things that bothered me or seemed confusing early on made a bit more sense when all the pieces started to click together in the end. It was hard at times to get through the first ~half but I think the author ultimately did a good job of exploring the themes they were aiming to explore.

Brutal and uncompromising and excellent. Are there some holes in it? Completely. Is that the point? Not even a little. Wow. I am awed and shaken by this book. 

 This book is a bit of an acquired taste, and I'm not sure that I acquired it by the end. If you love reading books with horrible main characters you are meant to hate, you'll love this. If not, this is going to be upsetting from start to finish.

I do think this book is relatively successful at what it sets out to do. It explores cycles of abuse, misogyny (both external and internal), and, obviously, the ethics of cloning. Martine's storyline really pulled me in, and every revelation about what her life was like got me more and more invested. The place she ended up in by the end still sticks with me. I wanted to pry the book open, pull her out of it, and weld the door shut after her. That speaks volumes for the effectiveness of Gailey's writing. 

That being said, the main character, Evelyn, is written as a cold, uncaring asshole, and that is done so effectively that it makes the novel hard to read. If you need your main characters to be even remotely likable or empathetic, you will not like this one. I do understand that Evelyn is intended to be this way, but on a personal level, it was just too much. I couldn't stomach a second read of this.

Overall, this is a brutal examination of misogyny, abuse, and personhood. It won't be for everyone, but if you're ready for a tough read, it'll deliver. 

(Cross-posted on Goodreads)

Sarah Gailey has become an insta-buy author for me. I love her writing style and find her stories intriguing with the perfect touch of weirdness. When I saw this sitting on the shelf at The Book Rack, I knew I had to get it; A scientist who perfects cloning technology only to have her husband have an affair with a more obedient clone of herself? Yes, please! Basically, every character was disliked but it didn't matter, it was like a trainwreck that I couldn't look away from. There were some deeper themes here around domestic violence, abuse, and grooming, so be aware of that. 

The Echo Wife is a science fiction twist on a marital affair between a bio scientist, her husband and her science experiment project. I think what readers will mainly get from this book is the fact that Evelyn is a very deeply flawed character, but she is very driven focused, and, strong willed. And ironically, these are the characteristics that her husband, Nathan does not seem to appreciate or like about her. I find that the book is so heavily focused on Evelyn's narrative and her recalling things from her past between her parents and how their personalities influenced her.

I find her obsession or , hyper fixation on her research and her work throughout the years and how she compare that to her Ex-husband's inability to understand her and appreciate how focus in determined she was really takes away from the thriller or suspense aspect of the book. I found the narrative to be mostly predictable, and very slow paced. And the most I got from this book was a fact that Evelyn was struggling to find the emotional connection with it within herself Based on her upbringing, but overall the strongest theme in this book had to do with misogyny and her, realizing how dark and conniving her ex-husband Nathan was. 

At first, I thought this was in untrustworthy first person recall of Nathan's character, but as a book progresses readers will find that Evelyn's commentary on him and her stories, and her overall interpretations of who he was is actually not that far off. I will say that I appreciate Evelyn getting to know her emotions better through Martine was a nice touch.