Review: Echo Boy

Echo Boy
Author: Matt Haig

Publication Date:  March 27th 2014
~A copy was provided by Random House Childrens via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review~

 

 

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Audrey's father taught her that to stay human in the modern world, she had to build a moat around herself; a moat of books and music, philosophy and dreams. A moat that makes Audrey different from the echoes: sophisticated, emotionless machines, built to resemble humans and to work for human masters.

Daniel is an echo - but he's not like the others. He feels a connection with Audrey; a feeling Daniel knows he was never designed to have, and cannot explain. And when Audrey is placed in terrible danger, he's determined to save her.

THE ECHO BOY is a powerful story about love, loss and what makes us truly human.



 

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Echo Boy was a complete surprise, but forget The Walking Dead, try my Walking Nightmare. It scared the crap out of me.

Have you seen Surrogates? If you have, I feel sorry for you, I mean, I feel sorry for myself. You haven't? Don't bother. Just read this, it's much better. It's not the same thing, since the "Echo's" are not you hooked up to a machine and mind controlling the robot body, and more Echo's are actual robots, created, made, signed, sealed and delivered all round technically human like advanced robots, but they are machines and nothing more.

And then there's Daniel.

All of that and more. His creator added a 0.01 of human DNA -a strand of hair-  that makes him significantly different from not just human's, but from other Echo's alike. That part of him made him  not exactly human-and in some certain characters cases- more human than them, but he questions things, can feel emotions,  pain, guilt, and love.

Audrey's parents have just been murdered by their Echo, made by Tempura instead of Castle, her father's Brother's company, because her father's basically an activist and hates everything Castle has created. Audrey's the lone survivor, and now has to live with Alex Castle himself, which is where she meets Daniel and as she finds out along the way, everything who she thought she could and couldn't trust get's blurred.

Castle however, has not just created Echo's, no, here we are again with the crossing the lines. With extracted preserved DNA of extinct species, including two Neanderthals. They're held in a zoo like place, where people can come and watch them get tortured, and Echo's destroyed, because everybody loves a good show that includes things that aren't really alive or human, called the Resurrection Zone.

I loved most of the super enhanced things, like you can go to places all over the world in minutes, an hour or two, how amazing would that be? It's like 'let's go to America', like it's the simplest thing in the world, and guys, the moon. I mean, it sucks that the worlds basically the lost city of Atlantis and all, but you can live on the moon.

At some point during this, you'll think where's the limit? What step is one step too far of crossing a line? That at one point, you've made something you can't unmake. That suddenly could take over the world and exterminate humanity.

Echo Boy is fast paced, and hooked me from the go and is utterly addicting.

So in a nutshell? Echo Boy is my walking nightmare.

 

Rating: 5/5