A review by nmcannon
Ocean's Echo by Everina Maxwell

After enjoying Winter’s Orbit, my book club picked up Ocean’s Echo. Since other book club members enjoyed this second adventure in the Resolution Universe, it might be a case of “it’s me, not you,” but Tennal and Surit’s stories made me want to pull out my hair. I did not finish at around 75%.

A big source of my grumbling is the shifted focus. I liked Winter’s Orbit because it focused on intra-empire diplomacy. Ocean’s Echo fully dives into imperial military and its toxic culture, with lots of proverbial looking into the camera and asking if I’m aware imperial militaries commit atrocities. I live in the USA. What do you think? The book died before my eyes, becoming boilerplate moralizing that military = bad. I agree, but I didn’t come to this book to be reminded of state-sanctioned violence. These reminders of banal atrocity were coupled with superfluous world-building and character work. Orshan’s militaristic society isn’t very different from Iskat’s militaristic society as we left it in Winter’s Orbit. The pacing dragged something wonderful as we re-tread ground.  Tennal and Surit didn’t feel very different from Kiem and Jainan: they’re the same character dial knobs twisted slightly. The same-ness extended to Istara, Vinys, Oma, and Legislator, who all felt like the same character on different points in one life. I guess the point was to say that the military will corrupt even the most moral person? No matter a person’s intentions, it will corrupt them. The only way to avoid corruption is
to be like Istara and leave.


My boredom reached critical mass. Small annoyances collected until they became Big Deals to me. The “readers” and “writers” euphemisms were tedious. The romance was slow-burn, but I grew irritated how often the love plot was set aside for yet another human rights violation perpetuated by somebody in uniform. For a book that touts the soulbound trope, the narrative concludes
that soulbinding is awful and unethical. The ending goes so far as to eliminate it completely, which felt like a trite, unsatisfying solution. Surit is the noblebright archetype, but what is the point of noblebright if there’s no moral quandary to struggle against?
Ocean’s Echo is marketed as Adult, but seems to forget the adult reality of nuanced moral landscapes and lack of neat solutions.

Last, I want to talk about Tennal. It was very hard to watch Tennal engage in self-harm and swirl on a destructive spiral. I had a lot of room in my heart for his aunt, who did not want to be a parent and inherited two children, one of whom already had severe behavioral problems. She’s tried everything and nothing is convincing Tennal to care about himself:

"All right," he said. "I’m a fuckup. Is that what you wanted to hear? We know that already." He bit the bullet. "What are you going to do about it?"

The unspoken words were there this time. He’d been sent to various elite institutions for difficult teenagers back when he was young enough, he’d had lectures, he’d had therapy—he’d gone through everything the legislator could think of to get him back on track. This was why he shouldn’t have come home. He was going nowhere from here. She could try any counseling intervention she wanted, but neither of them could get away from the facts: Tennal was a nightmare, his aunt hated it, and that would be their dynamic until one of them died.

Honestly, I would be at a loss here too. From the above paragraph, she’s tried everything. Her “solution” that kicks off the book shouldn’t have been considered, but I empathized with a person totally at the end of their rope. To end on a high note, Tennal’s issues pushed Maxwell into nuance (until the end) and reminded me of the times when my brain just utterly hates me. Sometimes it do be like that. The description of Tennal’s abilities were among the most beautiful prose in the book, making me wish we saw more of it. 

Ocean’s Echo and I are like baking soda and vinegar. Apologies on the explosion of a review. Many other readers enjoy Maxwell’s second foray into the Resolution Universe.