Reviews with content warning for Alcohol - The House Across the Lake

Definitely not a book to read if you’re struggling with alcohol. I understand it as a focus of the novel but wasn’t expecting such a heavy feature. Would rather have focused more on the crime aspect. Not my favorite though the narrator was nice.

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stephaniezd's review

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challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

What a twist! I should know what to expect from Riley Sager by now, but it always catches me off guard. Loved this one.

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adorotich's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Loved all the twists and turns, but I’m not sure the

supernatural element

was necessary or explained that well. Also don’t think alcohol/alcoholism needed to be featured as heavily (felt like every page) for readers to understand the point.

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sonygaystation's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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makaroni18's review

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hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.0

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davidb71's review

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1.0

I read my first Riley Sager novel late last year - The Only One Left - and I thought it was a real treat. A twisty gothic thriller that was better than I was expecting it to be, and a pleasant surprise. Since then I've read two other books of his - Home Before Dark and Lock Every Door - and while I didn't enjoy them anywhere near as much as The Only One Left, I still found them enjoyable reads. With his books I've found that I just need to enter into the spirit of them, and go along with them - they may be a little blunt at times, a little lacking in subtlety, the dialogue a little on the nose, there may be some implausibilities in the plot - but there's been enough to enjoy in them to stop any issues I had from completely dragging them down.

And this is how I felt about this book - The House Across the Lake - for perhaps the first half of it. I felt it was a little blunt and heavy-handed in lots of ways, but I was still drawn into the mystery and quite happy to go along with it, eager to see where the story was heading.

But at around the two-thirds mark the novel went from being flawed and a little too heavy-handed for my taste, but basically okay-ish, to going completely off the rails. And I mean completely off the rails. I can't recall ever seeing a novel take such a jarring turn into total craziness like this one did. And for me it didn't work at all.

I couldn't believe what I reading - and not in a good way. There's a supernatural twist that comes from nowhere that I found totally jarring. For two-thirds of the book you're reading one type of novel - a mystery surrounding a missing woman at a lake house, with echoes of Hitchcock's Rear Window - and then, suddenly, you're reading a completely different type of novel involving supernatural elements and people being possessed by spirits. If this sounds like fun, it isn't. I thought it was a mess.

And it wasn't just the supernatural elements that I didn't like - there were other plot twists and revelations piled upon this supernatural nonsense - and none of it worked for me. Too much made absolutely no sense. None of it felt cohesive - I can't remember a less cohesive novel I've read in a long time, if ever. And it just kept getting worse and worse - to the final 'twist' that I thought was so poorly executed it had all the sophistication of a villain's reveal in an episode of Scooby Doo.

I finished this book feeling dazed, stupefied, in a state of disbelief - not because of the story itself, but because I couldn't believe how bad it was. I couldn't believe how anyone could think this was a good idea, from the writer himself, to the publisher, the editors, the whole litany of people involved in bringing a book to publication. I thought it was a complete mess. It's a book that will live on in my memory for all the wrong reasons. Truly awful.

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snoopyfanclub's review

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challenging dark hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

2.75

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dishaslibrary's review

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

So good I love Sager’s writing. Wanted more of Boome. A very unrealistic novel - not a fan of supernatural stuff.

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