The Echo Wife

by Sarah Gailey

hardcover, 256 pages

Published Feb. 16, 2021 by Tor Books.

ISBN:: 978-1-250-17466-6

View on OpenLibrary

(33 reviews)

5 editions

Phil in SF reviewed The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey

Best book I've read in ages

5 stars

Easily the most engrossing book I've read in a long time. Take science fiction (cloning) and mix it with domestic suspense (murder!) into a very compelling and original plot. Rather than presenting the reader with a babyface and heels, the book has complex characters that lean toward mean because they come from damaging backgrounds. And while I didn't want to root for them, the story drew me in to where I wanted to see everyone have a satisfying end, rather than get what they deserved.

The background of these characters makes the story extremely layered and rich, but a warning. As the author writes in their acknowledgements, The Echo Wife is about abuse, grooming and identity. My abuse was long enough ago, and my psyche is hard to damage these days. The specific situations described are also dissimilar enough from what I faced that I did not have trouble with …

Tak! reviewed The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey

Fantastic!

5 stars

I loved the sense of creeping doom as I unraveled each drip of exposition.

At first I couldn't see how this and Upright Women Wanted could possibly be from the same author, but eventually similar themes around trust, betrayal, and self-loathing/-punishment emerged.

Enno reviewed The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey

Review of 'The Echo Wife' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

The underlying science fiction plot is well-crafted in the way it twists and turns, but what I appreciated most was the description of the main character's inner thoughts. At times uncomfortably recognizable, she's got a desire to be in control, and has many of the flaws she sees in other people (her husband, lab assistants and parents), but is in perfect denial about that.

Books That Burn reviewed Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey

Review of 'Echo Wife' on 'Storygraph'

5 stars

THE ECHO WIFE gripped me from the first line, using calm and precise language to build a horrific tale of abuse and death. Every revelation drops like a stone into water, raising the level by inches until it feels like it can hold no more.

This is a well-paced thriller which doles out disturbing news just often enough to be unsettling. Evelyn's descriptions consistently bury the lede, pondering first the reactions and consequences to some very important piece of information before finally circling back to say what caused the fuss in the first place. It reshapes the weight of these moments to emphasize how dealing with each horrible (and sometimes not so horrible) event affects those who remain. It's disassociation in book form, as if Evelyn isn't ready to look at what's going on and must approach everything at an angle in order to have any chance of reaching it at all. I especially love the complex discussions about the ethics of cloning, the difference between what Nathan did and what Evelyn does, if there is one.

It's about healing, clawing back by inches what was taken and filling in new things where the old bits are lost forever. Figuring out what bits of Evelyn and Martine belong to themselves, leaving space for them to want different things even though they started out as the same person. It's shaped by the absence of an abuser, the gap left behind by someone who demanded that every thought fit his needs.

ish-i-ness reviewed The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey

Review of 'The Echo Wife' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

For most women the word “wife” is complicated. It’s the wife you hope you will be. It’s a potentially dangerous thing to become. It’s what we’ve been, on some level, shaped by society to be and, thanks to that, something we resist. It’s something we wish we could have for ourselves. All of these forms are explored in a narrative that is filled with mad scientists and murderers, some more intentional than others, making for a book that delivers genre thrills while also remaining a literary meditation on those complexities of the word “wife”. It’s amazing.

ManyRoads reviewed The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey

Review of 'The Echo Wife' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This is an interesting method for an author to assess and examine stress, travail and life's unwarranted cruelties. In many ways the book is incredibly disturbing; in others, it is uplifting. I would 'probably' have given the book 5 stars if the ending hadn't been quite so obvious.