3 out of 4 stars
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The Crystilleries of Echoland, by Dew Pellucid, is a fantasy, murder mystery novel for young adult readers. The world that Pellucid creates in this book is exactly like ours at first glance, but there is something off about it. Every year, thousands of children disappear without a trace, and no one seems to be able to remember what happened. None of these children seem to ever find their way back to their families, except one: Will Cleary.
Will Cleary is half of a pair of twins and was kidnapped alongside his sister, but he was the only one who returned. Instead of his sister by his side, he comes back with a falcon and a wolf, who both stick by his side throughout his entire life until they lead him to the mysterious world called Echoland. There, he tries to find his lost sister, and in the process learns about a missing land and treasure, which he has to help to find. He also makes many different friends including a prince, a magician, and an adorable dog. With these friends, he goes through many different challenges and fights to reach the missing realm.
In this book, the plot and character development are very nicely done. Pellucid opens the reader’s mind to this brand-new world that Will is discovering, and it is as if the reader is right there with Will. The imagery in this book is used extraordinarily well and brings the world to life around you. Every detail is included and nothing is left out. My favorite part of this book is that the characters act like normal human beings, each one with their own set of skills and flaws. I never felt like one was too overpowered or see-through. Every character we meet has an important role in the story, and none of them seem as if they were there to fill in gaps in the story. Character and plot-wise, everything feels intact and it creates a magical experience for the reader.
However, there are also a few issues I have with this book. First of all, the book’s pace is extremely fast and almost seems overly rigorous. The story jumps from place to place with no real transitions and can be very confusing for someone reading it for the first time. The thing I least like is that there are also many details the reader needs to remember that seem useless when first brought up, but end up being major plot points during the climax of this book. I wish Pellucid would have indicated some of these points were as important at the beginning as they are at the end of the book.
Another issue is editing. It seems either self-edited or rushed through an editor because commas are missing all over the book. Mostly, there were missing commas after introductory elements, but also, the oxford comma is missing a lot. Another editing problem is that sometimes the book does not follow through with parallel structure, so it is harder to quickly understand when reading.
Personally, I would give this book three out of four stars. Most of the editorial edits are easy to jump over and does not disturb the reading flow, so I did not lower it down to two. However, editing is still a problem. The book can also be very confusing at certain times too due to the faster pace and the missing commas, therefore I did not give it a four.
Overall it is a great book, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes to read mystery or fiction books.
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The Crystilleries of Echoland
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