A review by readingwithmeredith
Meet Me at the Lake by Carley Fortune

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

2.5

This was my most anticipated release of 2023 and I wanted so badly to love it. ESA was one of my fav books of 2022. But I really struggled with this book. I didn’t care about the characters, I couldn’t even root for the romance and found myself rooting for a totally different relationship that could have been in the story. There are quite a few things I couldn’t get behind in this book and I could never look past them to enjoy the story and their relationship. 

it is just really hard to root for a relationship that they only knew each other one day, had substances influencing them, and were both with other people when they met.


To me the only win was the setting. Even if I hadn’t read the author’s note, I could still tell she was struggling to write this book. It honestly felt like a different author than ESA and I wanted to love this so much.

Content notes: pretty sudden open door content (2-3 scenes varying in length, first one was the longest and I just skipped these completely.), drug use (one of my biggest pet peeves and almost always an instant DNF), mild language, grief, sudden loss of parent (not a spoiler- premise of the book)
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