Review Detail

Young Adult Fiction 1129
Echoes of Grace
(Updated: July 14, 2022)
Overall rating
 
5.0
Plot
 
5.0
Characters
 
5.0
Writing Style
 
5.0
Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)
 
N/A
Grace struggles to understand her gift of 'echoes' where she has visions that distort her past. One morning when tragedy hits, the echoes come full force. One of them has her remembering three years previously when she escapes after her mother's murder to Mexico. Once there she stumbles into the home of her grandmother. A grandmother she was told had died. But once there she finds her grandmother is very much alive. Past and present mingle together into a huge puzzle. A puzzle Grace tries to piece together to find the truth about what really happened to her mother. She needs to do this in order to heal both her and her sister.

What worked: Wow. Just wow. I love McCall's novels and this one held me on the edge of my seat. Such powerful writing! Grace has echoes or visions. This gift runs in her family. The relationship between Grace and her sister Mercy is so real and authentic. Grace is the nurturing one in the family and when tragedy hits, that's when her visions grow stronger.

Love the Mexican backdrop and how McCall shows a family in need of healing. There are secrets that hold back the family from moving forward. The weaving back and forth between time works. Readers see what happened three years previously in a small Mexican town. The trauma holds on to Grace's grandmother's house like a poltergeist with a horrific secret.

The relationship between Grace and Mercy is a complex one. Just like how it is with sisters. There's a bond that is tested and one that needs secrets to be revealed in order to heal.

Atmospheric contemporary Latinx Gothic tale meets Rebecca where visions lead a girl to confront deadly secrets from the past in order to heal. Totally recommend!
Good Points
1. Haunting modern-day Gothic tale
2. Atmospheric story with paranormal elements that show intergeneration trauma through the eyes of one sister who shares a gift of seeing ghosts and the past
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