Frank Burns reviewed The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey
Review of 'The Echo Wife' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
I have said before that Sarah Gailey was going to get 5 stars from me at some point and on her third, full length novel she has.
Ignore the time from start to finish with this book, that was more a life happenings thing than a reflection of the quality of this work.
At root it is a domestic abuse memoir, framed in a science-fictional horror setting. There is a stunning insight here that any form of real cloning of a person is going to involve harsh abuse of the innocent clone to make it go through the same formative experiences of the original. Without its consent, or even, consulting it.
This horror flashes up a dark mirror to the process of abuse itself, taken at one remove like this the mechanisms become clearer and there is no hiding from the wrong of it.
I should say this book avoids …
I have said before that Sarah Gailey was going to get 5 stars from me at some point and on her third, full length novel she has.
Ignore the time from start to finish with this book, that was more a life happenings thing than a reflection of the quality of this work.
At root it is a domestic abuse memoir, framed in a science-fictional horror setting. There is a stunning insight here that any form of real cloning of a person is going to involve harsh abuse of the innocent clone to make it go through the same formative experiences of the original. Without its consent, or even, consulting it.
This horror flashes up a dark mirror to the process of abuse itself, taken at one remove like this the mechanisms become clearer and there is no hiding from the wrong of it.
I should say this book avoids the 'insipid victim' trap. None of these characters are exactly likeable, but the victims quite clearly still do not deserve what is done to them.
The prose style helps this flow and it is very well written.
A definite recommend from me.