If you're the kind of reader who grew up on Lois Lowry's *The Giver* and then fell hard for Kazuo Ishiguro's *Never Let Me Go*, then Scott Alexander Howard's *The Echoing Valley* is absolutely for you. In other words, it's perfect for ME! This is a must-read if you enjoy character-driven, coming-of-age stories with a dystopian or speculative twist. *The Echoing Valley* is set in a small town nestled in a valley between two mountains. Across those mountains, on either side of the valley, lie iden...

Scott Alexander Howard's *The Echoing Valley* boasts a completely original premise, fantastic world-building, and truly wonderful writing that had me utterly engrossed from page one, keeping me up all night reading. It’s entirely unique, deeply unsettling, and guaranteed to spark an existential crisis… As another reviewer so perfectly put it, "I have never read anything like this, and you haven’t either."

Interesting premise—a bit different from your typical time travel story. Unfortunately, *The Echoing Valley* by Scott Alexander Howard just didn't grab me. At first, I thought maybe it was because the protagonist was a teenager and I often find coming-of-age stories a miss.However, I liked the second part, when she's an adult, even less. The plot felt predictable and didn't make a whole lot of sense. I would have really preferred some explanation of *how* these parallel valleys, identical in eve...

There are some truly standout moments in this unique, though flawed, time-travel story that tackles themes of loss, obedience, conformity, consequences, and missed opportunities.\n\n3.5 stars, rounded down. I don’t usually give half stars, but I’m so conflicted about how to rate **The Echoing Valley** that I feel I have no other choice.\n\nHere's a brief summary from the book's description:\n\n> **West is twenty years in the past.**\n> **East is twenty years in the future.**\n> **Would you trave...

The last thirty pages or so of *The Echoing Valley* are great. But the rest of the book was such a slog for me; I only kept going because of all the positive reviews I'd seen. In a way, I feel like I haven't read the same thing as everybody else. It's not a bad novel, it just felt like a miss to me because the plot idea is genuinely good (the blurb literally made me skip other novels on my TBR list for this one!). In a town where the neighboring town to the east is twenty years in the future an...

Trigger warning: This book doesn't use any quotation marks. Heads up!If that didn't scare you off, then get ready for this subtle novel, **The Echoing Valley** by Scott Alexander Howard, to take up residence in your brain. It really lets the natural beauty of the valley just sink in.It's a dystopian story where each part of the valley is essentially the same, just with a twenty-year difference between them. Head east, and you're in the future; west, and you're in the past. Naturally, like any go...

The premise of *The Echoing Valley* is high-concept, yet so simple it seems amazing no-one’s written this book before now. There’s a community in a valley. Some distance either side lie duplicate valleys – exactly the same, except one is twenty years in the past, the other twenty years into the future. Movement between valleys is both physically taxing and strictly controlled: requests must be approved or denied by a special council, the Conseil (and they are almost always denied). Our protagon...

1 star Thank you to Book Club Favorites at Simon and Schuster for the free copy for review. This is my own unbiased opinion. Publishes February 27, 2024.I refuse to read this book because there's no indication of when characters are speaking. No quotation marks, no italics, no dashes, no double indents—nothing. It's frustrating, and frankly, not worth my time to have to reread passages that just drone on like background noise when it's actually a conversation.If Scott Alexander Howard isn't goin...

What an interesting concept. I must give Scott Alexander Howard props for originality. Imagine a town in a valley. On the other side is the same town in the same valley, but they are separated by twenty years. One town is twenty years in the past, the other twenty years in the future. Got it?Sixteen-year-old Odile wants a place on the council. If she gets the spot, she gets to decide who can visit/cross the borders into her town. One day she witnesses two elderly individuals and recognizes them ...

This is a quiet gem of a novel. Scott Alexander Howard takes a unique premise and executes it beautifully – never relying too heavily on his fantastical plot device to convey young Odile’s heartfelt story. I loved the exploration of the moral and practical reasons a citizen should and should not be allowed to visit their neighboring valley to the east (20 years into their future) and to the west (20 years into their past). A more scrupulous reader might uncover some time travel plot holes here t...