I feel like theatre people will love this book. I'm (sadly!) not a theatre person. There was some well developed mystery in there, but I feel like this would have worked better with adult characters as there were some odd age moments. Adrian was by FAR my favourite character. ( )

This book swept away and let the reader get lost in the pages instantly.

Zara loves being on the stage, and when an audition tape lands her at an in-person audition at a well-known theater with a just as well-known director, she's sure she's just dreaming. When she lands the lead role, she knows she's been swept away. Even more amazing, she'll be playing the lead in one of her most favorite romances...since she was twelve. While her and the director get along well enough, her first steps into the theater land her in front of a man's corpse. Never could she suspect that she's in for a wild ride, which includes more than just mystery, secrets, fame and struggles...it includes a romance which might break her in two.

I was surprised how fast and easily I was swept into these pages. The author does a terrific job at giving the main characters personality and bringing them to life. During the first chapters, this is done so well that it doesn't slow the pacing, but rather, melds right in with the tale. Later however, there are several areas where things slowed down more than I like. But in general, it's a capturing tale with tons of weaving and interesting twists.

There are several triggers in this one and it does hold some more graphic scenes on the romance end. More sensitive readers should be aware in advance of these as it won't fit every reader. But for those who enjoy this type of read, they are in for a treat.

I received a complimentary copy and loved the world building and character depth. ( )

After reading The Lost Coast and falling completely in love last summer I knew that my life needed more of Capetta's magical storytelling so I immediately got my library to order this one in. Echo after Echo may not have the witchy magic and west coast vibes of the Lost Coast, but I was still totally wrappe dup in the characters and story very quickly. Capetta sets her stage at the Aurelia, a famed New York theatre that will prove to be the setting for the unfolding of a triple narrative - the dramatization and development of "Echo and Ariston" that anchors the book, the real life love story unfolding between the protagonists Zara and Eli, and the revenge plot being carried out backstage. The theatre setting itself is what brings about the sense of magic and mystery throughout what could have otherwise been a rather straightforward story of jealousies gone awry, and Capetta further heightens the drama by carefully employing the idea of a cursed theatre. Even those of us who are not theatre buffs are sure to quickly become engaged as we see the drama backstage unfold - ourselves outsiders to the "theatre family" as much as newcomer Zara, the story's titular Echo. As we watch the play unfold and our cast reveal more of themselves wea re left guessing up until the finale who the real murderer us, which makes for an excellent narrative, and whether all three fated deaths will manifest. And even with all the expected drama which unfolds, we don't lose sight of our characters. Zara goes through so much emotion as she finds herself developing her Echo alongside her real self, made all the more complicated by her youth and her unwitting connection to Eli. All in all, the play may be the thing, but it's Capetta's true characters and careful mastery of real world magic that keeps us turning page after page. ( )

This book. This book this book this book.

I swear this book saw into my very soul. I mean sure it was a really dark, twisted af murder mystery, but the characters. Zara and Eli just,,,
I related so incredibly much to both of them. Like holy shit. And not just the whole queer theatre kid thing (although that too) it was just,,, something deeper than that. There were so many lines that resonated so deeply with me, about theatre, about love, about family, and life, about queerness, about everything.

I didn't expect this book to hit me so hard. But holy shit it hit me hard.

(Also yeah, my sapphic self *was* really fucking happy to see queer theatre girls) ( )

At first I found this book wearying, another story of theatre people who are so very pleased with themselves for being theatre people. As the mystery picked up, I got sucked in and ended up finding it quite satisfying. But I never got a handle on Zara, the main character. The other characters wrote on her whoever they wanted her to be, that's the point, but to such a degree that I'm not sure the author ever really knew who she was.

The thing this book did best, I think, was weave a completely believable and creepy as hell portrait of a brilliant, powerful man and the (mostly) women's lives he ruined. He chose to produce plays about young, beautiful, tragic women, so he could cast young, beautiful, naive women in those roles and wield his power over them, and the theatre-going public ate it up. Even the "good" men, in this book, assume the women in their lives want what they want without ever asking or listening to the answers. It's all entirely plausible, well-crafted, and an important story to tell.

Until the end, when the real villain turned out to be a wronged woman pushed too far. Leopold is Roman Polanski or Bill Cosby, powerful and charismatic, pushing Zara's line back by smidgens, each smidgen feeling forgivable or survivable, until she's so far over she's trapped and can't get back. We hear story after story of how Leopold did that to a series of hand-selected ingenues over years and years. He's an entirely convincing "art monster." Meg orchestrating his death along with a team of the rest of the cast and crew he hurt was a satisfying twist end to the mystery, except that it left Leopold as a pitiable victim and victimized Meg as the scary perpetrator of the "real" crimes. But the "real" crime here wasn't only the murders; nothing Leopold did in his career deserved to be forgiven by the text in light of Meg's more direct crimes. The end was a tragedy, but it robbed the social commentary of its punch.

The romance is sexy, Zara's declaration of bisexuality feels a little ham-handed but is welcome representationally, and the prose is a little overwrought at times but in a way that is entirely appropriate for teenage theatre people. High school students who like Big Drama mysteries -- [b:Speak|439288|Speak|Laurie Halse Anderson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1310121762s/439288.jpg|118521], [b:All the Truth That's in Me|17297487|All the Truth That's in Me|Julie Berry|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1364245088s/17297487.jpg|23932930], [b:We Were Liars|16143347|We Were Liars|E. Lockhart|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1402749479s/16143347.jpg|21975829] -- will love it. It verges on "New Adult," because the protagonists are 18 working teenagers living on their own, and is definitely too old for middle school. ( )