What worked: the thing I’m discovering about Anna-Marie McLemore is that their use of language can be so disarmingly beautiful—like I’ll read a sentence and audibly gasp—but not in a way that feels inaccessible. I’m not looking up every other word or anything, I’ll just think to myself: “what a lovely way to phrase that!”

As someone who is neurodivergent and non-binary myself, I also really identified with a lot of the descriptions of both Bastián’s ADHD and just the overall discussions of gender from both Bastián and Lore’s perspectives. There were so many times that I highlighted things just because it felt like I was reading something that had been taken out of my own brain.

(I’ve also never read a book where dyslexia was described so thoroughly, which I found really helpful because I know very little about how that feels for a person living with it.)

I appreciated that this was a story about accepting the parts of yourself that you wish you could expel. If you’re someone like me, who makes a habit of ruminating on all your bad days or moments, and allowing them to convince you that you’re irredeemable, then you will absolutely resonate with Bastián and Lore.

But what makes this story so powerful is that it reminds those of us with brains we have to put effort into working with, that our bad days are part of us too, and that doesn’t make us any less worthy of love.

“So many of us are haunted by versions of ourselves we wish we could exile. But the pieces of our beings don’t pull apart that easily. If we try to unweave ourselves, we unravel at the edges. So we all do the work of reconciling who we are now with the ghosts we once were.”

It also highlights, quite powerfully, how the bad thoughts and emotions that we attempt to suppress will only reinsert themselves with more force the more we refuse to deal with them.

Now here’s what didn’t work (for me): I struggled with the jumps between chapters more than a few times. The chapters are relatively short—sometimes less than a page long—which is not a problem at all, but the thing is, between chapters the story often jumps rather abruptly, and it wouldn’t be clear how much, if any, time had passed. You wouldn’t be sure if it was just a horizontal jump through space but not time (just a perspective shift from one character to another) or if you jumped forward in time as well.

The second big thing is the pacing lagged. I’d say for a large chunk of the middle part of the story, it didn’t feel like very much was happening and it got repetitive.

The chapters started to feel like “open with ‘the thing about living with ADHD is…’, maybe interact with friends or adults, then the world floods, colors everywhere, Lore/Bastián encounter one another mid-flood, the water recedes, rinse, repeat,” until finally around the 65/70% mark new things started happening and I felt reengaged.

I hope that doesn’t sound overly critical or put anyone off. Like I said, the language and the descriptions are lovely, and I think the book has a ton of value, especially for neurodivergent people and the folks who love them. Plus it has a ton of important commentary about racism (one really powerful quote that stuck out to me, was “I’m brown, and trans, and I have a learning disability. My sheer existence is as much nuance as I get to have. Who I am uses up all the space the world is willing to give me, and even that, I have to fight to keep open. I am already a living confrontation. My story doesn’t get to be complicated.”)

It’s a message that I think bears repeating again and again:

“Once you get past the fear of being seen, you can get to the part where you know you’re not alone.”

Content Warnings

caseythereader's review

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emotional hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

Content Warnings

ashylibrarian's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I wanted to love this book. The description sounded so promising and it was an anticipated read for me for 2022.

I love the trans rep. I love the neurodiversity rep. I love the relationships, platonic and romantic. I love the way in which Lore calls out the education system's flaws in teaching reading. Everything else just fell flat. I didn't feel like a lot happened and I was a bit confused by the world under the water.

This won't likely be a go-to recommendation for me, but I'll keep it on my list.

Content Warnings

hobbithopeful's review

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dark emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Lakelore is an emotional magical story of accepting yourself, and being brave enough to trust others with your truths. POVs alternate between main characters Bastián and Lore, two nonbinary trans Mexican teenagers that struggle with being themselves and navigating the world around them. Lore struggles with Dyslexia, while Bastián works through their ADHD by creating and painting alebrije sculptures. Bastián has discovered that when they release the colorful alebrije into a nearby lake, they transform into the fantastical creature and swim away. Lore is the only other person that is able to see the magic of the lake, and peer into the other world like Bastián is able to. As the lake and its magic begins to encroach on the daily lives of Lore and Bastián, they must learn to confront their pasts, and their futures.
I loved the way gender and its fluidity was discussed in this book, how some days they felt more boy and more girl, and how they interpreted it in terms of "70% boy today".
I have always enjoyed all of Anna-Marie McLemore books, and even though this one followed heavier topics and had a more serious tone, I still had a great time reading it, and it left me with a lot to think about.
The Cover
I adore this cover! The colors on the bottom look so dreamy and trippy and creates an out of body feeling for the illustration. The symbolism of them both being in the water with barnacles growing on them, with maybe an allusion to the fact they are both partially emotionally drowning was extremely well done. It is also a pleasant surprise to see brown characters *actually* be brown and not be white washed.
Cover by
Carolina Rodriguez Fuenmayor

Content Warnings

30something_reads's review

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4.25

4.25⭐ 😭 I'm not crying, you're crying.

When the guy looks at me, he sees a brown girl. And I am a brown girl, just like I’m a brown boy, just like I’m both and neither, in different proportions depending on the day. I’m the gradients of blue and green and violet and silver that the lake turns.

This is one of those books that I am so glad exists for adolescents today. I wish younger me had these kinds of books with this kind of representation.

On the surface, it’s a story told in dual POV about two trans teens, Bastian and Lore, and their discovery of a mysterious world beneath the lake. But when the world beneath the lake begins integrating with their real world, they must figure out a way to stop it.

This is also a story of two teens meeting and feeling fully seen for the first time by one another. Not only for being latine, queer, and trans, but also for their neurodivergency. And all of the intricate ways they must navigate society- Bastian with their ADHD and Lore with their dyslexia.

Once you get past the fear of being seen, you can get to the part where you know you’re not alone.

The depiction of these characters experiences with ADHD and dyslexia were so poignant. It’s so clearly personal to the author, but it also brought tears to my eyes because my neurodivergent ADHD brain felt so seen in those moments.

How do you tell someone that you had to work to learn not follow every impulse your brain has?... That you came into the world with so much quicksand you needed professional help to learn to steer around it?

Beautiful writing. Wonderful representation. A book everyone should read.

Content Warnings

oliverreeds's review

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adventurous emotional hopeful fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

i fought with this rating and im still unsure in my decision but im sticking with it for now. the dialogue was good, the scenes were great, the mix of lake and reality and the characters were phenomenal. sometimes i just got a bit frustrated with how much the author leaned on adhd and dyslexia for these characters. it sometimes felt like there wasnt anything else to them and maybe that was the point— that your brainscape makes up and defines your reality but i think it may have been better to also focus on things the characters do that werent particularly relevant to their neurodivergency.

Content Warnings

thewoodlandbookshelf's review

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emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

shelvesofivy's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

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