An Echo Through the Trees by Michael Galloway is a simple straightforward read. Chase and a buddy go deer hunting with the buddy’s father and uncle in northern Minnesota near the Canadian border. A freak snow storm sets in and Chase looses his way in the woods.
Will he get the buck? Will he find his way back to camp before freezing to death?
Galloway weaves backstory and internal struggles the characters face. The final pages contain a spiritual lesson.
The basic story line kept me reading even though it failed my expectations based on the Amazon description. The hunting trip didn’t serve merely as a backdrop for a more dramatic story such as Chase and company encountering a dangerous third party or the ongoing feud between the father and uncle escalating into a bigger dilemma.
I like character development and didn’t see this here. The characters’ one dimensionality and the easily resolved internal problems in the end robbed the potential of a satisfying story. It’s as if the reader should say ok because the author said so.
Further more, the themes of moving forward and forgiveness didn’t develop progressively. Again, the spiritual lesson lacked preparation in the earlier chapters making the moral of the story feel tacked on.
The author’s repeated use of smirk to describe a character’s reactions irked me the most.
To Galloway’s credit, his interest in outdoor activities made the story authentic and enjoyable in that sense. The cover also appealed to me with a man walking on a snowy road amongs the trees.
I recommend An Echo Through the Trees for young male readers in one’s life as a way to get them interested in reading, but not the contemporary literary fiction, as labeled.
However, I still enjoyed the read for escape and education. It’s also only $0.99 on Amazon Kindle (for the time being).
