Audiobook Review – The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey, Narrated by Xe Sands (2/5 stars)

Reading Level:Adult
Genre: Science Fiction/Thiller
Length: 8 hours and 26 minutes
Publisher:‎ Macmillan Audio
Release Date: February 16, 2021
ASIN: ‎B087V5HBWC
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone, Part of the Tinkered Stars Universe.
Source: Borrowed audiobook from library
Rating: 2/5 stars

“Martine is a genetically cloned replica made from Evelyn Caldwell’s award-winning research. She’s patient and gentle and obedient. She’s everything Evelyn swore she’d never be.

And she’s having an affair with Evelyn’s husband.

Now, the cheating bastard is dead, and both Caldwell wives have a mess to clean up.

Good thing Evelyn Caldwell is used to getting her hands dirty.”

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I borrowed this on audiobook from my library.

Thoughts: I had this book on my wishlist to read for quite awhile because the premise sounded intriguing to me. Previous to reading this I had read Gailey’s “Upright Women Wanted” which I also enjoyed. I also just finished reading “The River of Teeth” which I also enjoyed. I enjoyed the very beginning of this book but then things went down hill fast. I ended up actively disliking this book and almost didn’t finish it.

Evelyn is a geneticist that is working on making temporary human clones as stand-ins for real people (for things like safety reasons where a body double is needed). Then Evelyn finds out her husband is cheating on her with a clone, Martine, he made from her DNA and tweaked to be everything he wanted Evelyn to be. When Martine starts asking questions that Evelyn’s husband dislikes he tries to kill Martine, but Martine kills him first. Martine calls Evelyn for help but now everything is a mess…Martine doesn’t even legally exist and there’s a dead husband to deal with.

This was an intriguing premise but the characters were very unlikable and their were too many inconsistencies. Everyone in this book was an equal opportunity ass. Evelyn constantly complains about her husband’s sloppy work, but then repeatedly does things that are even sloppier. Evelyn seems like she is supposed to be a smart woman, but why does she make so many dumb choices? For example, why did Evelyn decide to bury her husband’s body in the backyard? I mean duh, why would you do that?

Also there were huge inconsistencies here. Why didn’t Evelyn find the other surprises in the backyard when she was burying her husband there? Why was the plot line with the baby’s immposibility and the health of the baby such a big deal and then it was basically dropped?

In the end, despite this being an intriguing premise this ended up being just flat out boring and poorly plotted. Lots of page space is dedicated to Evelyn reminiscing about how her marriage went wrong and blaming herself for it, when it was very obvious that it was both her and her husband that broke that union. Also a lot of page space spent with Evelyn rethinking her life and her childhood. Additionally, there is a lot of detail about day to day work in the lab, which don’t get me wrong I worked in a lab for 25 years and it can be interesting, but this was overdone in this story.

I kept waiting for something, anything…to happen. There were so many ways this story could have turned into an engaging genetic thriller that had you on the edge of your seat. But, none of those things happened. The book just kind of ended and honestly made me feel like I had wasted my time. This could have been an amazing short story or short novealla, but as a full length book it was sorely lacking.

I listened to this on audiobook and the narration was decently done, no complaints with it.

My Summary (2/5): Overall if this had been the first book by Gailey I had read I wouldn’t have picked up any more of her books. Hopefully, this one is just a dud (although it seems to be one of her more popular books). I plan on finishing the second novella in The River of Teeth series. I would recommend both “River of Teeth” and “Upright Women Wanted” over this book. This book was so bad; slow, inconsistent, awful characters, nonsensical plot and absolutely no closure.