Title: The Sound & The Echoes
Author: Dew Pellucid
Page Count (ebook): 279
Official Amazon Description
The Sound and the Echoes is a high-concept, fantasy adventure
for young adults, with 27 magical illustrations.
Imagine that everyone around you has a mirror image living somewhere else. Your world is like a sound, which produced that other world of echoes. And in this land men are governed by a terrible law—no Echo is allowed to live after his Sound dies.
One Sound especially must die. The Prince’s Sound. The Fate Sealers and Fortune Tellers will make sure of that! Because after this Sound dies, the Echo Prince will have to die too.
Now, twelve-year-old Will Cleary is about to discover that he is the Sound the Echoes are hunting. And so begins his perilous adventure into a see-through, sparkling world, filled with spying crystal balls, an eerie fortress of castaway children, a hunt for clues in an ancient book of riddles, and a last-chance escape through a frozen gem-studded lake into a secret land that holds the key to placing the Prince on the throne and returning freedom to the Echoes.
Imagine that everyone around you has a mirror image living somewhere else. Your world is like a sound, which produced that other world of echoes. And in this land men are governed by a terrible law—no Echo is allowed to live after his Sound dies.
One Sound especially must die. The Prince’s Sound. The Fate Sealers and Fortune Tellers will make sure of that! Because after this Sound dies, the Echo Prince will have to die too.
Now, twelve-year-old Will Cleary is about to discover that he is the Sound the Echoes are hunting. And so begins his perilous adventure into a see-through, sparkling world, filled with spying crystal balls, an eerie fortress of castaway children, a hunt for clues in an ancient book of riddles, and a last-chance escape through a frozen gem-studded lake into a secret land that holds the key to placing the Prince on the throne and returning freedom to the Echoes.
My Thoughts
Though the description of The Sound & The Echoes states that this is a Young Adult novel, at several points in the book I found myself wondering exactly how it could be defined as belonging to the YA genre. Most of the YA novels I have read feature characters between the ages of 15-19 who are teenagers in every sense of the word. However, The Sound & The Echoes' main character was twelve years old for the majority of the book and it seemed to be written for an audience of the same age, which left me feeling more than a bit confused as to how this could be classified as a YA book.I did enjoy the story, it was extremely creative and unique, something I appreciate in a literary world where there are far too many cookie cutter books around. And at points, I even felt like I was reading some alterior version of the Harry Potter series, with the main character being a male twelve years in age who arrives at an orphanage of sorts with a Dumbledore-esque headmaster and proceeds to become aquaintances with an equally outcast boy and girl.
I think this is an excellent book for a younger age range, simply because it seems to revolve around the sort of interests a younger audience would appreciate; I believe my twelve year old self would have loved this book. Overall, I found that The Sound & The Echoes was a good read, with an excellent plot line, though I would say it belongs more to an age range of 9-13 than the typical YA genre.
In your opinion what makes a novel, a YA book?
Book Links:
Amazon
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