Echo North

ECHO NORTH was a lyrical and imaginative fairy tale retelling. With elements from East of the Sun, West of the Moon and Tam Lin with lashings of Beauty and the Beast, Echo Alkaev goes to great lengths for her white wolf.

After a wolf attack when she was a child, she lived a quiet life in her father's bookshop since she was bullied and reviled whenever she went out in public. Her father meets a woman and decides to marry her but he hasn't picked a good woman. Her constant demand for things is pushing her father into bankruptcy and causes him to go off to sell his last items of value. He is gone for six months before Echo finds himself injured in the woods.

A white wolf offers to send him home if Echo will agree to spend a year with him at show more his home. Seeing no other way to save her father, Echo agrees and her adventure begins. She learns that the wolf is under a curse set by the Wolf Queen and Echo has to agree to let him spend the night with her every night but to never light a lamp and look at him. During the day, they explore the house and Echo learns to bind the rooms together.

Echo's favorite room in the library which is filled with mirror-books. She can jump into any story. She meets two other readers as she explores the stories. Mokosh is the one who tells her the rules of stories but it is Hal who intrigues her more and who she falls in love with. She learns that he is trapped in the mirror-books and has few memories of anything but the stories.

As the year comes near its end, rooms begin disappearing and her quest to find a way to help the wolf and free Hal from the mirror-books gets even more intense. She comes to know that Hal and the wolf are the same. Bad advice from Mokosh has her lighting a lamp and looking at the wolf turned Hal just hours before he would have been free.

Echo vows to find him and free him from the Wolf Queen which is where the resemblance to Tam Lin kicks in. She needs to journey to a magical land and is lucky to have a storyteller/guide who was once the North Wind but gave up his powers because he fell in love.

This was a beautiful story filled with wonderful images and lyrical prose. I enjoyed it very much. show less

When Echo finds her missing father unconscious and half-frozen in the woods, she is given a choice by the white wolf -- if she agrees to live with the wolf for a year, her father will be sent home safely.

This is a retelling of “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” with elements from “Beauty and the Beast” and “Tam Lin” thrown into the mix. There are so many things about this story which appeal to me, including the unexpected and wonderful library, with books Echo can literally step into, and a sequence where she learns to play piano music composed by a Bach-equivalent. (I have fond memories of learning Bach.)

Yet I found this book frustrating and slow. Stories unfolding slowly can be compelling, if the prose is beautiful or the show more characters are nuanced and complicated, or the plot is full of suspense. Here, both the prose and the characters are rather straightforward, and I predicted nearly all the twists (bar the finale) because I already know how this sort of story goes.

But I believe that this tale could delight a younger, or a less critical reader -- or even one who hadn’t encountered “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” as often before.

Another book I would send back in time to my teenage-self, if I could. show less

This was a wonderful retelling of Beauty and the Beast as well as mythological stories. I understand that it was a young adult book, but that was not off-putting in the least. I was completely mesmerized by the prose and I do believe that this author has a lot to offer the world with her fiction. The characters were deep and developed, the imagery well placed, and the story smoothed along at a great pace. There is much to like here and I think that almost anyone, if they have an open mind, can enjoy this book.

4.5 stars!

Literary Merit: Great
Characterization: Great
Recommended: Yes
Level: High School or upper middle grade

I love reading fairy tale retellings and this one was particularly beautiful and enchanting. It’s a retelling of the Norwegian take East of the Sun, West of the Moon as well as an element of the Scottish ballad Tam Lin. I loved the rich setting, strong characters, and mystery of the story as it unfolded. Not having read the original tale before, I guessed some of the twists but not all and I loved being surprised by where the story went. The writing style was perfect and begs to be read aloud by a fire in the winter time. I also especially loved the book mirrors included in the magical house. Highly recommend this story and hope it can show more find more adoring readers show less

I got this book to review through NetGalley. I really loved this book! It's a great blend of faerie tales that is beautifully written. I whipped right through it and enjoyed every minute of it.

This book is a blend of some different fairy tales. Primarily it is a retelling of “East of the Sun and West of the Moon” but it also contains elements of “Beauty and the Beast” and “Tam Lin”.

Echo is scarred in an accident when she is young and is shunned because of this. Her father and brother love and support her, but her new stepmother is somewhat evil. When Echo’s father goes missing, Echo ventures into the woods desperate to find him. She does find her father but she also finds the white wolf from her childhood and ends up show more involved in a dangerous enchantment.

I loved so many elements of this book; the characters, the magical house in the woods, the enchanting book mirrors, and the evil enchantress. I loved the folklore about the Winds and how effortlessly Meyer blends all these folklore/fairy tale elements into a beautiful story.

Overall I highly recommend this book to those who enjoy fantasy folklore and fairy tales. It’s beautifully written and was an amazing read! I can’t wait to see what Meyer writes next. show less

I loved the icy fairytale world with books you can literally visit, but I didn't care for the romance enough to be fully invested in the second half of the story.

A mixture of many old fairytales, Echo North is a book about fighting against evil with the power of the oldest magic on earth- Love. Though cliche at times, this book has lovely imagery and reminded me of quite a few stories I grew up with. I loved how the character became the care taker of a house alongside her wolf friend to become lover. At times the plot was a bit confusing, but that didn’t deter me too much from enjoying this book.