Last year I read The Humans by Haig and it left me questioning my own existence and raised so many unanswerable questions that I wondered if I’d ever be the same again. The Humans was an adult novel and upon realising Echo Boy was a teenage/YA book I was rather intrigued.
Echo Boy is set in a dystopian future where humans have become reliant on Echos. Echos are highly skilled robots, made to look like humans, and carry out everyday tasks for their owners. Humans are also reliant on advanced technology but our protagonist Audrey is not like all other teenagers. Her father is a sceptic and doesn’t believe in all the new technology. This would be fine, if her uncle wasn’t the leader of the Castle Empire – the biggest Echo manufacturer in England. When something terrible happens Audrey is left facing an uncertain future but, what she doesn’t count on, is meeting an Echo who might save her life.
Daniel is an echo – built to look like a human but devoid of human emotion. Yet something about him isn’t quite right and he begins to feel ‘things’. He begins to feel emotions for others and soon he is left questioning where he too belongs in the world.
One thing I love about Matt is his ability to construct an in-depth and strikingly accurate social commentary between the lines of his books. Whilst this novel was a compelling and entertaining read about a robot and a human, there were far greater messages and ideas behind his words.
The notion of technology taking over was apparent from the beginning and it stirred up many further questions about our reliance on all things technological and how we are starting to become lazy as a race. It made me question my own dependence on technology and simultaneously ask what would happen if one day all technology failed – what would we do then?
Haig also explores the whole ‘coming of age’ theme and cleverly integrates the idea of peer pressure and conforming to social norms into the plot too. Does being different make you wrong? Is it right to do what everyone else does? He also touches on the subject of love and how it can span genders, races etc…it doesn’t have to be confined to just one man and one woman.
But perhaps the most interesting and enthralling strand of this book was the idea of what it is to be human. Haig attempts to shed light on the human condition – how we need emotions, that life is about experiencing joy and pain, that perfection doesn’t exist and doesn’t need to exist, that what we experience as humans is what makes us human.
Haig’s characters were full of strength, courage and personality which really helped me to form reliable opinions of them and led me to hate a few of them! Audrey and Daniel were just fantastic narrators and as we follow them on their journeys, I couldn’t help but fall in love with them both and everything they stood for and represented. Whilst I am walking away from this book with a feeling of contentedness and am happy to have been part of Audrey and Daniel’s story, I am also walking away with such a renewed view of life and what it is to be alive. And that is Matt Haig’s strength.
Haig consistently explores what it is to be human and leaves readers with questions that no one has the answers to.