Echo by Francesca Lia Block

Echo Reviews

• 
  saguaros

  I didn't even finish it.
  While the prose was absolutely beautiful, I couldn't stand the glamorization of, well, everything from drug abuse to eating disorders, to feeling fragile and hopeless.
  I didn't like that all the characters felt that their doom and salvation was in finding a boyfriend/girlfriend. That to feel whole and human and yourself you need someone to love you desperately.
  I didn't like how being fragile and soft and breakable is made to sound like it's the prettiest state a girl can be in, how desirable and beautiful you are if the weight of the world seems to be about to crush you.
  
  So many people I know love Francesca Lia Block, but for me it's often love or hate. I guess I picked the wrong book this time around.
  I'll try another one, and we'll see.
• 
  Gorfo

  The book started in confusion and ended in confusion. I'm not sure what it was about! Was it symbolic or meaningful? If so the symbolism was completely lost on me. Unicorns and vampires exited and entered the book on a whim and I'm not sure if this was a realistic fiction about a girl who had serious mental issues or a sci-fi or what. The book was peppered with sex, drugs, and melodrama and though the writing was beautiful the story line was definitely lacking a lot!
• 
  snowplum

  If you particularly enjoy lyrical prose and magical realism, at some point you must read a book by Francesca Lia Block. I am probably in the minority because I would recommend Echo before the far more famous Weetzie Bat (the book of that name or the entire series, Dangerous Angels, of which Miss Weetzie is the title character.) Here's why:
  
  Block is a perfect example of a writer who begins a charmed career with raw talent and a distinctive voice and who eventually ends up trying hard to mimic her own best self, systematically recycling the language and plot elements from her earliest work. (If you're a music fan, think Stevie Nicks -- that's basically a perfect parallel.)
  
  Somewhere in the middle of that journey from pure inspiration to contrived commercialization, however, is a sweet spot where there's still a lot of the rawness of youthful anguish and passion, some of the magic of uncontrolled artistry that needs and accepts no editor, and some of the more sophisticated and controlled craft of the veteran writer. I think Echo sits right in that sweet spot.
  
  It's a stand-alone book that has all the signature elements of Block's fiction -- a dreamy young female protagonist living a sophisticated LA life who drifts between stark reality and stunning fantasy, blurring the lines on both sides until dreams seem like they're possible to live, for real, every day, and every day seems as though it's ever only a blink away from turning into magic. Every once in a while, Block gets a little bit self-conscious and precious, but nowhere near as often as she does in her later books, and there's a focus to the storytelling that her earlier books lack.
  
  There are more than a hundred sentences and passages in this book that I would have been proud to have written. It's a glorious, romantic, trippy, sweet, edgy, unique, and special book. I'll give you more thoughts on Weetzie Bat in another review someday soon, but for now, I would say read this book when you are feeling particularly receptive to magic and awe, and if you only ever read one book by Block, make it this one.
• 
  Greta is Erikasbuddy

  I loved this book!! This author has such a way with words. It's like your listening to a song rather than reading a book. I hope to one day read every little thing out there she has ever written. SHe is definately my kind of storyteller.
  
  In ECHO, you meet a girl named ...well... ECHO. You go through her life and every chapter somehow either revolves around ECHO or is a story that will someday effect her.
  
  It's really brilliant the way it is done and the ending actually brought a tear to my eye. (not because I was sad but it was so clever and beautiful)
  
  My favorite chapter was "Thorn". It reminded me of flat stomachs, late nights, leather jackets, and acid trips.
  
  My one wonder is why on earth this book is rated YA. There are things in this book (in my opinion, of course) that I'm not too sure I would want my teenager daughter to read... but then again... if I was a 14-15 year old girl, I would probably be carrying these books around as though they were Psalms written just for me. I guess it's your call if you want to let your kids read these or not. -- THe only reason I say that is because of the reference to drugs. --- again -- You're call ;)
  
  But still --- this book was brilliant. It makes me want to write original stories. It gives me hope. It's an inspiration and a lesson. I do hope this author is still writing. I would love to see how modern society has effected her words.
  
  5 stars!! Great read!!
• 
  Julia

  Amazing is too small a word for what I feel for this book. I love Block's way of writing. It is full of passion and music and magic. It's like the whole world is a glittery, shiny, wonderful and terrible place.
  Echo is a girl with issues, just like everyone else, but in a unique kind of way. She falls in and out of love, meets and looses people and wants to be loved and to be beautiful. This novel is about love - not just the romantic kind of love, but the accepting and respecting yourself-kind of love. It is Echo's story but it is also a story about Los Angeles and how to survive in this beautiful and cruel world.
  I think it is a very inspiring book. It's even poetic in a sensual way. Block has the talent to describe the things in such a beautiful way, as if she was the fairy of the words. I love her style and I recommend her novel to everyone!
• 
  Jenny

  Beautiful writing, but I didn't care as much for the story itself.
• 
  Roderick Mcgillis

  I like the Weetzie Bat books and I Was a Teenage Fairy. I like the manner in which Block folds faerie into contemporary America, especially southern California. As for Echo, I am less certain because the book departs from my memory quickly. It is an ambitious book with its shift of perspective and time throughout. I think what works less for me is the prose. Here it has less of the quirky Valleyisms and more cloying description - of foods, of flowers, of painting, and so on. This novel aspires to the condition of poetry, but the cloying poetry of Swinburne rather than the bracing poetry of some of Block's American fellow writers. The plot also crams a lot into a short space. We have angels, mermaids, vampires, demons, devils, fairies swirling about our central character. In the end, we have a sort of True Blood removed to Los Angeles. Los Angeles is the protagonist of this book, as perhaps it is of all Block's books. The city of glamour and sin, of celebrity and anonymity, of hopes, dreams, and nightmares. Characters try to forge relationships, both familial and social, in an environment that thrives on superficiality. Something painful speaks from the pages of Block's work.
• 
  Amanda Butler

  I finished this book on the day I started it. From the summary, it seems like an otherworldly adventure book. Upon reading it, it is discovered to be reality; seen as an otherworldly, adventurous perspective. It has many underlying themes that truly bring the book to life. The otherworldly perspective of mermaids and angels and vampires is just how Echo herself sees life.
  
  Since the book is told from many different perspectives, remembering who the characters are and how they are related to each other is at first confusing. As I read, I mapped out the characters and their relations to one another and then it all clicked. From that point on, I realized how much of a masterpiece this book is.
  
  It defines life in an abstract way, from living to dying, from drugs to sex to anorexia and finally to self-respect. What I first thought was a children's book turned out to be a book with many adult themes that I didn't know I needed to read. This book proves to the reader that magic doesn't die in adulthood.
• 
  Jess the Shelf-Declared Bibliophile

  Sadly I missed the hype on this book. The author was very much all over the place. The author truly beautifully described everything, however the actual storyline was somewhat hard to follow. I think the author had really high hopes but I'm not sure she completely pulled it off. She would spend long chapters telling the backstory on one character, then jump to a seemingly unrelated character. She did this with about 5 characters until you could finally see how they started to know each other. However, by this time, you were so confused with who was who that it barely matters. In the end, they all somehow tied together, but the characters just were names by then & you didn't remember their backstory for it to matter. I would read more by this author, hopefully with the same writing style but easier to comprehend.
• 
  Joshua

  And then I cried a flood of tears as if I really were a mermaid who had absorbed too much sea into herself. The tears spilled like a balm, like a potion, like a charm. In them swam a little girl whose father was dying without ever having seen her
  
  Echo, cannot be read like a typical YA novel. It reads like poetry or a dream. It's mystical and silly and heartwrending all at once. Mrs Block writes lucious, beautiful prose.
  This book is one to savor. Page by page. Breathing in the beautiful words and letting them seep into the marrow of your bones.
  This is the kind of book you finish, and hug close to your chest with a big sigh before putting it back on your shelf.
  
  If you like clear, plot driven, tell-it-like-is books; Echo is not for you.
  If you want a heartbreaking coming of age story, full of fairies and angels and other magic; You will love this book.
  
• 
  April-lyn

  When Grace lent this to me, she told me that it read like poetry. And she wasn't joking. The best word I can think of is "ethereal". Gorgeous and dreamlike, and over and done with as quickly as a favorite song. I read it in less than two hours - I can't remember the last book I read in one night. Just the thing for a night when I was feeling mopey and lonesome.
• 
  Mackenzie

  This book hits on all of the usual F. L. Block themes, but is a little less grimy/ethereal/wonderful than some of her other works. At 14 I would have loved this book just as much as Weetzie or Girl Goddess #9. However it doesn't stand up on its own merits to someone a little (haha, a lot) older with more literary experience under her belt.
• 
  Mizuki

  2.5 stars, the writing is nearly dreamly but the story is not very engaging but I don't hate this book.
• 
  Mr. Blevins

  Hands down one of the worst books I've read. There is virtually no plot, character development is non existent, and the jumps in point of view are awkward and difficult to follow.
  
  I disliked that their was no dialogue. It was a master class in telling not showing. The characters are flat and unlikable the whole way through. Plus, their names are Thorn, Smoke, Echo, Valentine, etc...It's supposed to be magical realism, but I'm not buying it.
  
• 
  MayaElena LeSire

  
  I remember the day I found this book. It was my senior year, I had transferred to a new school. I barely attended, but when I did I'd hide out in the library during lunch. I picked up this book, and I couldn't stop reading, it's a fairly short book. It's a novel/short-story/poem in my eyes. Whenever I did go to school, I spent my lunches reading this book over and over. It reassured me that I was okay, it was okay to be alone, to not fit in. This book was able to connect my mind and my heart in a way no other book really had. And I've read a lot of books. It was an inspiration, a deep understanding and connection one can only have with that one song, that one specificmovie, or that book. This was my book. When I read this book turqoise, black, green and blue swirled through my mind. And when I looked in the mirror a short petite girl with glitter pasted on her eyes blinked at me. She constructed this fantasy version of reality that I could relate to. All my life I have tied myself completely to men, burried myself into them. Maybe to distract myself from what was really hard, and really important. This book, to me, had nothing to do with men and everything to do with me. I knew what it was like to drive to the beach in the middle of the night and eat a bean burrito. I knew what it was like to wish reality was better, that a fantasy life existed. I feel really awful saying that because reality, life, IS beautiful but when you're a hopeless romantic, a book reader, a craver for fantasy...your expectations are so high. You're constantly dissapointed. Constantly. Most people would turn the other way, and never settle but it seems i have most certainly settled. I settle and yet at the back of my mind, through the thorn bush to my heart past fear, sadness and confusion their is hope. This book was another kind of hope for me, a true hope, an acknowledgement that I had an imagination and I was creative. It allowed me to feed into sadness and confusion, in a bad and good way. Being a girl IS hard, growing up is hard, and theirs a lot to be sad about, but what is a greater inspiration than your sadness, desires, and despairs.
  It's kind of changed meaning for me throughout the years. Like now, I've chosen to not settle. To not abandon my hope, and my hopeless romantic expectations just because things haven't worked out with guys who don't even know what a centaur is or scoff at the idea of fairies and mermaids. Fuck that, I want something more.
• 
  Wai Lin

  Each chapter was similiar to short story to me. I found this book a little boring because usually I would read a book with a straight plot line but each chapter seems to jump into a new topic and/or place. Also, almost each chapter introduced new characters and some didn't pop up again throughout the book. The first chapter was about her mother. She related her mother to an angel that she saw as perfect. All the while, she didn't see herself as anything like her mother. Throughout the book, she meets fictional characters. For instance: a vampire and she wonders if they are reality.
• 
  C

  Another YA novel that was recommended to me here on goodreads.
  
  I'm not sure what to say about this one. It seemed overly melodramatic and trite at points and much of the sex/drug use/anorexia seemed there for shock value (which it didn't provide) rather than a realistic part of the character. Many of the surreal twists, also, seem thrown in for the sake of creating a false sort of 'magic.'
  
  On the other hand, some of the prose was beautifully written - melodic and haunting.
  
  I would be willing to read another book by this author, but I probably wouldn't actively seek one out.
  
• 
  Lorena Walker

  Something about the way the author writes-it is so poetic but in such a simple way. I LOVED the way this book was written but I don't think it is a book everyone will love and it is probably not suitable for anyone under the age of 15 because of some of its content (from what I recall). My favorite by this author!
• 
  Morning

  At first I was confused on the sudden jumps that the author made is certain seconds. Then the stories started to jumble together. Sometimes I would start to follow along track and even attempt to guess at what was going on, but others times it was just too confusing because not only the stories jumped, but the characters Personalities did as well. I wasn't even aware they could do that
• 
  MB (What she read)

  Reading Francesca Lia Block is so spacily weirdly weird! I feel like an xenobiologist spying on an alien culture. Reading this is more like viewing a kaleidoscopic slide show than reading a novel.
  
  (It would probably help if I were closer to the target demographic in age and NOT completely opposite in personality to her characters.)
• 
  Rebecca

  A captivating storyline, this books seems almost bewitching, each line read seemingly converting plain, simple words into pure magick. Although some of the contained texts are clearly not intended for audiences beneath the age of 8, this author has still managed to capture the spirit of youth, fantasy, and innocence and project it through dynamic characters gracefully within this book.
• 
  Guillermo

  Easiest read ever. I don't recommend it if you get annoyed with strange writing styles--the book's written for what seems to be a teenage, but has content that I wouldn't allow my niece to touch.
• 
  Shelsey

  This book was difficult to follow along as focus shifted from Echo's story to other characters in the novel. I appreciate the author's prose, but the story itself did not hold my interest.
• 
  Chandni

  I still don't know what this book is about, but it has Francesca Lia Block's lush writing.
• 
  Rita

  chaos and grasping and the usual flb, but the nostalgia always pulls me in.