The first thing that needs mentioning is that the blurb on Amazon is not the plot AT ALL. That makes Echo sound like a new student at MOA who makes everyone dislike her by copying them. That didn't happen whatsoever.
A ton of characters are introduced, so I'll make a quick list:
-Echo (obviously): an Oread (mountain nymph) who lives in the forest and is the guardian of FirHeart, a fir tree
-Daphne: Echo's friend who guards LaurelRing, a laurel tree. Daphne used to be a Naiad, a river nymph, but changed herself into an Oread. Apparently, this is a thing Naiads can do. Having Daphne protect a laurel is an amusing, child-friendly way to include her in the story, because the Daphne and Apollo myth doesn't work for that.
-Pan: The godboy of shepherding, who's part goat. He attends the same Nature School as the girls.
-Syrinx: A Naiad who's visiting her old friend Daphne. She's an asshole and remains one the entire story. She picks on Echo a lot for her copying.
-The Treechers: The eight teachers of the Nature School are actual trees. These Hamadryads are so old that they've melded permanently with their trees and are basically trees with faces. They are: Karya (hazelnut), Ptelea (elm), Balanos (oak), Morea (olive), Ampelos (a grapevine), Aigeiros (poplar), Kraneia (cherry), and Syke (fig).
-Narcissus: A vain mortal who wants to be a fashion model and often tells lies.
-Tiresias: Narcissus' stylist and agent.
-Anaxandra: Narcissus' artist. She's only in it for a couple brief scenes. She was an actual female Greek artist around 228 BCE.
-Amalthea: One of Zeus's nannies. She has both goat and human forms.
-Melissa: The other of Zeus's nannies. She has both bee and human forms.
-Ide: Melissa's daughter, who has bee wings. Her marriage is to be celebrated soon. The groom remains unnamed through the entire book.
-Moda: A mortal fashion designer.
I think that's everyone.
Echo lives in a treehouse in her tree, FirHeart, and attends Nature School with the other local nymphs and a few boys (one of which is Pan). She copies things she likes, sometimes in a flattering way and sometimes it seems an unconscious thing, like when she can't help but mimic someone's gesture. She likes the design of Persephone's chiton in the newest Teen Scrollazine, so she sews leaves and flowers onto the hem of her own, which I know is not how Persephone's was and seems like something a forest-dwelling nymph would like, so I really didn't like it when Syrinx mocked her for it. Syrinx is visiting her old friend Daphne and has turned a lot of the other nymphs against Echo by mocking her copying ways. Sadly, there is never a true comeuppance for her bitchery nor does she turn over a new leaf or explain why she's the way she is. She's just a nasty bitch for no good reason and remains that way the entire book. It's like in Persephone the Daring when there's no comeuppance for Eurydice and Atë. I hated that.
Anyway, Echo's out in the forest doing a school assignment when she sees some lightning and has a bad feeling. You see, instead of doing her own daily protective spell for FirHeart, she mimicked one of Syrinx's many river spells and then forgot to add her own regular spell on. So poor FirHeart gets hit by lightning. A heartbroken Echo makes a small hut beside his stump with some help from her only true friends, Daphne and Pan, after Syrinx is a bitch to her again and the other girls blame her for what she's done and turn away. (She blames herself, too, but come on. These nymphs suck.) She consults the Treechers and they mention that Zeus is the only one who can do anything. Echo thinks about it and begins to get angry with Zeus for zapping her tree for no good reason. She leaves the forest and heads to MOA to confront him.
In the Forest of Beasts, she runs into three mortals. Narcissus, the preening egotistical wannabe model, his agent/stylist Tiresias and his artist Anaxandra. Echo saves them from a beast, but it turns out the mortals, who by the way are not supposed to be in the forest, have been using the malfunctioning dragon as a prop. They're not interested in Echo until she mentions her interest in fashion design. They hide when they hear some immortals coming, as it's Friday, the day they have class. Fearing for Artemis' safety, Echo warns her of the nearby dragon, but Narcissus manages to take the credit and Echo, having a crush on him, lets the lie go. Narcissus asks what Artemis will do for him, a sure sign that he's a complete ass, but Echo's too enamored to notice. Artemis takes Echo, Narcissus and Tiresias back to MOA with her and the other goddessgirls.
Zeus is out, but Echo is determined to see him, so she sneaks off to the Immortal Marketplace, helps distract Hera so Zeus can eat a ton of cupcakes and finally gets to talk to him. He says she can switch to another type of nymph, so the goddessgirls, who followed her to make sure she stayed safe, offer to take her around to various groups. They try some meadow nymphs who just dance a lot, cloud nymphs who are a bit airheaded, and river nymphs who are too daredevillish for Echo.
Back at MOA, the girls leave Narcissus and Echo alone in the cafeteria and he tells her he's gotten permission to be on the bridal float in the next day's IM parade. He talks Echo into sneaking into Hera's shop to alter a couple outfits for the pair of them so they can star on the float. Echo does this and while there, eats a lemon cupcake. The next day, they sneak onto the float and pop out of the fake cake onboard, much to the dismay of the others on the float. Zeus is pissed, Hera is pissed, Ide is furious because she thinks Echo is in her bridal chiton (she isn't, as Echo embellished the chiton on her own), and Echo? Well, she can't explain a thing, because all she can do is repeat the last few words of what was said to her and asshole Narcissus is quick to shift all blame to her. Hera later tells her that the cupcake she ate was a trap for Zeus, so in a very amusing way, the authors have integrated Echo distracting Hera and getting spelled for it, although at least this spell is temporary.
A sad Echo leaves the IM with Pan, who she'd invited there to meet Apollo. Pan's dream is to play with Heavens Above, Apollo's band, but Apollo tells him that while he's very talented, he needs to find a unique instrument to play. On their way back to the forest, Echo spots some of the crazy lightning that hit FirHeart. It turns out the lightning was not caused by Zeus. It was Narcissus and his jerkass modelling team fucking around with the beast dragon. Syrinx is now with them and she's got a crush on Narcissus, too. Sigh. Sadly, Echo is still stuck under the copycake's spell so she never gets to tell Narcissus exactly what he's done, which I hate. It's so unsatisfying! Syrinx mocks her and Echo realizes the Naiad is wearing one of her old outfits. Syrinx says she's going to replace Echo, but then Daphne runs in and bitches her out. Pan messes with asshole Narcissus, who stares at himself in a pool. You see, there was this prophecy I didn't mention before because these characters are such assholes that I so don't give a shit, but blah blah if Narcissus sees his reflection, he'll lose his heart. They're all afraid that means he'll die. No, it just means that he falls for himself and will never love anyone else. Just as the jerk mortals leave, Echo's spell wears off and sadly, she does not run after them and tell them what they did. Argh. The beasts in the forest got messed up by Narcissus falling in the pool, so they start running around and Syrinx lies down in the pool with a reed to breathe through. The others do the same and this eventually leads Pan to create his pipes, which he uses to calm the beasts. Syrinx declares the forest too dangerous and returns to the river. Echo is glad she's gone and I am, too, but I wish someone had told her off better. Daphne just kinda stood up to her instead of letting her have it. But at least Narcissus didn't return her feelings, so she's not totally unscathed. Bitch.
Echo gets the idea to redesign Ide's wedding chiton and she and Pan return to the now very busy IM. Turns out the publicity from her and Narcissus's stunt actually worked in favor of the IM and everyone who was scared to shop there after the Typhon incident is now back in force. Echo brings her design to Hera and the bridal party, while Pan goes with the godboys to see Zeus about the malfunctioning forest beasts. Hera and Amalthea both like the design and when she finally looks at it, so does Ide. Echo is finally able to properly apologize and Hera says she knows that Echo didn't take Ide's chiton, having found it where she left it, and she knows Narcissus is a big fat liar. Everyone works to make the new chiton. Narcissus gets a little setback when both photos of him don't even show his face and everyone thinks his name is actually the name of the white flowers Anaxandra drew by the pool. So the narcissus flower still gets its name.
The wedding is a success. Echo convinced Ide to allow Pan to play at it, so he's discovered by Apollo. And with Hera's help, Moda the mortal designer accepts Echo as an apprentice, to work out of her forest, because her nature-themed designs will be her "brand." Best of all, a little sapling is growing out of FirHeart's stump, so Echo will have a new tree after all.
I loved many of the new characters and the world-building in this one and Echo is really likeable, but I hate it so much when negative characters don't get what's coming to them. It's okay to punish bad characters, authors. It's totally okay. If you're creative enough to figure out how to make Greek myths kid-friendly, then you are creative enough to come up with better treatments of the bad characters. Narcissus really needed to know what he'd done, just like Eurydice needed some punishment for what she did several books ago. I am looking forward to getting back to MOA next time. Calliope is up next in August! And then Pallas in December. More newbies, but newbies that interact more with the usual cast. I hope anyway! I missed them this book, even though meeting all the new ones was interesting and learning about nymph life.
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