Reviews with content warning for Violence - Lakesedge

First positively the author has a beautiful way of describing rooms, places, clothes, details with adjectives and so the world building is effective and stunning. Unfortunately that's about where it ends. The last survivor/resurrected of the drown family is constantly cutting themselves to do blood magic. The premise is they are trying to undo the corruption on the land caused by the tragedies and causing the tragedies This corruption had killed all the plants and blackened the water of the lake.
The other characters introduced who are trying to help with their magic are failing and also start self cutting to pull power which seems both dark, repeatative and unhelpful. The narrator makes a deal with the dark underlord and gives up her family... The love triangle between the undrowned traffic love survivor and the dark underlord both seem like abusive relationships full of gaslighting, darn deals and unfortunately violent power dynamics.. Giving up positive things in their lives to try to save this cursed land.

It all became redundant, dark and pointless. There's really no plot, the relationships aren't founded in love but more power dynamics, pity, and tragedy. I skimmed through entire book speed reading after the first half trying to see if it would evolve and a plot would evolve. Nothing evolved.

Sadly I can't recommend this, as despite the promising descriptive language and world building, the characters relationships are very triggering for me as an abuse survivor, and the self cutting is horrific, knowing people who suffered with cutting in real life this is not ok to weave into a young adult book as a source of magic. It's not cutting is just tragic self harm.

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maevreads52's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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elwan_enchanted's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.0

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karapillar's review

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dark emotional slow-paced

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

5.0

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anxiousnachos's review

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dark slow-paced

3.75

Maybe closer to a 3.5? I really enjoyed this! I read most of it in one sitting. Monster love interest really is one of my absolute favourite tropes and it is done so fabulously here, Rowan was one of my favourite parts of this book. He wears so many EARRINGS and is BISEXUAL. There’s also creepy lake magic and dark death gods who whisper in your ear yes please sir I will take that.

I do think it lacked a little substance though. At first I thought maybe it’s because I’ve read a lot of gothic adult books recently and so obviously a YA book is going to feel less dark/gory/horrific/intense compared to those. But the more I read, the more I felt there was something more genuinely missing, unrelated to the adult/YA divide. Despite that, I did thoroughly enjoy this book, bisexual monster boyfriends for the win, but it was quite an easy read and lacked a little depth for me.

Content warnings: self harm, child abuse, blood, sex, violence, some really gross vomit scenes, death of parent

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crystalisreading's review

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dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

The description, cover, and title combination for Lakesedge caught my attention right away, and I was glad to be granted an advanced copy. The story itself pulled me in right away, with intriguing world building and a strong older sister fighting to keep her younger brother safe in an abusive environment. The magic/ religious system in the story is interesting and cohesive, and the world as described seemed welcoming and pleasant. Well, mostly. At first. Then the magic really started. And the romance. And the drama. And the impulsive and often self-destructive decisions.

Violetta is extremely self-sacrificing when it comes to protecting her loved ones, and not good at caring for herself at all. The more you get to understand the trauma she has been through, the more her behavior makes sense, but it still gets a little tiresome after awhile. I felt like this was very YA, with maximum angst, both familial and romantic. There’s also some sort of love triangle, and the story ends on a cliffhanger. I keep forgetting that “lush” as a book descriptor means all the purple prose describing everything, and while this book wasn’t terrible, I got a little tired of hearing about how everything tastes like ash or burned sugar or poison or whatever, and how there were strings tied from / tightening her heart, etc. And this is very much my own preference, but some of the things these characters, especially Leta, went through, and the losses they endured, just felt like too much. I could see how the writing is gothic fantasy bordering on horror.

I did love the LGBTQ+ rep, as multiple supporting characters had same sex preferences or were bi/pan, and Leta appeared to be demisexual. And while this is wholly a fantasy setting, and Violetta and her brother are fair skinned and red headed, there’s also a fair amount of supporting characters who are described as having darker skin, curly hair, etc. Also, women have a lot of agency in this story, and while most of the people with leadership roles in the story (lords, village leaders, etc) were male, several of the female characters filled important professional roles and all the women were treated with respect. (The characters definitely existed on a gender binary, and there was no non-binary representation that I can remember.

Overall this was an enjoyable, if sometimes slightly redundant and slow read. I finished it in a few days around the autumn holidays. While I’m not sure I’ll bother reading the sequel, I nevertheless appreciate #NetGalley and Macmillan granting me a free electronic advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

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mfrank's review

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.0

I really wanted to love this book. I went into fully expecting to be obsessed because it's the type of book that is right up my alley. But, I just couldn't love it. I hated the way the other characters treated Leta all throughout the book. I can usually handle characters being irrational, but they were all just so hypocritical. They would constantly lie or hide things from Leta and then get angry with her for doing the same and concealing things from them. They really threw her childhood trauma back in her face several times. The emotional moments of this book were really good and were what kept me going, but the relationship between Leta and her own brother felt incredibly toxic.

Arien often threw her attempts to protect him back in her face and would get mad at her for not telling him stuff or doing stuff without telling him when he was literally always doing the same thing.

I also felt the ending was very rushed. The relationship between Leta and the Lord Under felt very underdeveloped for what it felt like the author was trying to do.

When she was constantly saying she felt betrayed by him, it made me wonder why she put any trust in him. He also lied to her multiple times and she was always acknowledging how ruthless and cruel he was. I feel like there weren't enough moments where he was nice to her or kind beyond that one moment when she was a child to have it make sense how much trust she put in him.

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