I had very high hopes for this an an audio book. I had heard it recommended for this format on What Should I Read Next? podcast. It was described as a magical fairy tale-ish story that was intertwined with music which lent itself to being a really unique listen.

The first issue I took with this is somewhat minor but worth mentioning. I’ve conditioned myself to listen to audio books at increased speed. I usually listen at 1.25x or sometimes even 1.5x depending on the narrator. With Echo, however, I told myself to listen at 1x speed (normal speed) so that the music wouldn’t be distorted or affected. Then it just get slow.

Beyond the natural “slowness” of listening at “normal” speed- I had a hard time getting fully into and following the story. It’s described as three stories woven together by the thread of a fairy tale. It reads like a series of vignettes or short stories. When I abandoned this book I was at about 35%. I listened to the fairy tale opener and the first of the three stories. I thought perhaps once I got through the first story, it would get better but I gave up shortly into the second story. Had I kept listening, I would have had a chance to see just how they connected to each other, but for me they seemed too separate from what I’d expect in a novel. Each with a different narrator and style. I wish I had the patience to learn the connections, but also I wish it had been more interwoven throughout.

It won’t be fair for me to say much more since this ended up in my DNF shelf. To its credit the music aspect was very interesting, and I therefore can’t imagine reading it on the page without that element. It was my second fairy tale-ish listen in a row, and I’m thinking maybe those just aren’t for me. So for my next audio book I’ll be switching back to memoir.