4 out of 4 stars
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The Crystilleries of Echoland is a magical and exciting Young Adult fantasy novel written by Dew Pellucid.
Two-year-old William Cleary and his twin sister Emmy, like thousands of other children, disappeared from our world. Unlike the other children, however, Will came back after a week, riding a wolf with a falcon hovering around him, and a glowing plant wrapped around him like a diaper of seaweeds.
That was ten years ago. Will is now approaching his thirteenth birthday and is trying to live a normal life. However, the absence of his sister leaves a gaping hole at the heart of their family and his parents never stop searching for her. Will thinks it’s about time he looks for his sister himself. Armed with the glowing plant and assured by the presence of his two faithful pets, he sets out and discovers Echoland, a secret, sparkling, beautiful, and magical land beneath us. It is a parallel world inhabited by see-through creatures and lucent beings. They are the Echoes and we are the Sounds. Each of them is a reflection of each of us.
Suddenly, as everything is revealed to Will, lots of things begin to make sense, especially the role he plays in this hidden realm. Now, it seems like Will has to do more than just rescue his sister. Together with the most important boy in Echoland and a group of courageous teenage castaways, William Cleary will search for the answer to an ancient riddle, for it would decide the fate of both Echoland and the Sound realm.
Told in the third-person perspective, this is a fast-paced book with sixty-three chapters complemented by eighty-two colorful and charming illustrations. It is an exciting, adventurous, and suspenseful story about a quest to save what matters most. The author masterfully weaves a tale that depicts courage in Will’s unwavering resolve to find his sister and retrieve what their family has lost, happiness. The book features friendship, loyalty, and camaraderie, as well as treason, greed, and dishonesty.
The author does a wonderful job in describing the settings in vivid detail and the exciting chasing and fighting scenes by adeptly illustrating the emotions of characters from determination, to desperation, to renewed strength fired by rage. The expert use of vocabulary in dialogues helps in character development that it’s easy to determine William the Sound from William the Echo, through their manner of speaking.
Needless to say, I enjoyed this book immensely. It has a unique premise and the plot is unraveled with a considerable amount of suspense, leading to a satisfactory conclusion. However, the presentation of Echoland with all its history and current predicament can be kind of overwhelming. Though that is not necessarily a bad thing, some parts of the book may require careful perusal. In my case, I reread a few paragraphs to make sure I get the details correctly. Moreover, I would appreciate additional backstories on some characters like Deà and Peter. I think Peter plays such a huge role and it would be nice to know more about him than simply being a magician with a tongue twister name.
I, therefore, rate this book 4 out of 4 stars. It is exciting, adventurous, and suspenseful. I recommend it to fans of fantasy and Young Adult Fiction novels.
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The Crystilleries of Echoland
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