ARC Review for The Storm of Echoes by Christelle Dabos

 The Storm of Echoes by Christelle Dabos is the fourth and final book in The Mirror Visitor series translated from French. I was lucky to receive an advanced audiobook in exchange for my honest review. Unfortunately, the book was a huge disappointment.

While we get to know several great characters throughout the first three books, many of them are mere cameos in the fourth book. I wanted more Berenilde, Madame Rosaline, and Archibald. We get a fair bit of perspective from Victoria, a nonverbal child with the ability to dream-walk. Because she cannot warn any of the characters about what she's seen, these scenes are used to build tension by giving the readers info that the main characters do not know. I liked this in the third book as it was used more sparingly, but felt it was overused as a plot device now.

Two other things annoyed me before the ending. This book is translated from French, but the translator leaves in a lot of French words, something that wasn't done in the first three books. This gave the book an entirely different mood. Secondly, there is a lot of focus on infertility that seemed incredibly out of place, especially for a YA book. I know the protagonist is now a bit older, probably 20-21 but when facing the destruction of arks and losing great swaths of people, it felt like an odd thing to focus on.

Even with these complaints, I was still enjoying the book until the last 40 or 50 pages. The pacing suddenly speeds up, several reveals happens, making little to no sense. I felt the author didn't know how she was going to make some things happen so she shoehorned in events that she wanted to occur, even if there were no links or clues to these sudden reveals.

I ruminated on how to rate this and decided on 2 stars. I don't hate it, but I also don't recommend reading this book either. While this is a quartet, it really feels more like two duologies. The first two books focused on politics and magical societies whereas the latter two focus on religion/god/cults. 

Both the book and the audiobook are out now. Thanks to Netgalley for my advanced copy.