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A review by obsidian_blue
Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen
3.0
I read and previously loved Sarah Addison Allen's Garden Spells, The Sugar Queen, and The Girl Who Chased the Moon: A Novel. I read The Peach Keeper: A Novel (Random House Reader's Circle) and found it to be lacking in the same magical realism that I loved about her older novels. There was a lot going on in that novel and not all of it gelled together naturally. Unfortunately when I finished with Lost Lake I had that same feeling.
The novel is about lakeside cabins called Lost Lake. Eby Pim and her deceased husband George saw a postcard with the cabins and bought and restored them. Living out there for decades Eby is starting to feel as if it may be time to move on from Lost Lake and see the world again like she was planning on doing when she was a newlywed. Eby's niece Kate comes to Lost Lake with her young daughter Devin to re-visit a time in Kate's life when she was happy. We have Kate dealing with the loss of her husband and finally coming back to herself after a year where she was "sleeping".
One of the best things about Sarah Addison Allen's novels is that she always interweaves a sense of magic in her books. The way her novels are written she can have a person believing that yes these things/events could happen. However, this novel is missing that feeling of wonder that I had when I read her other novels. I just felt that a lot of the writing and events that happened were flat. It felt to me like well of course this is the way that it happened and that was about it.
I ended up giving this novel just three stars because of the lack of development of the two leads, way too many plot lines, and a cliched and rushed ending.
I thought that Eby was an interesting character I wish we had delved more into her life back when she was married to George and what about him made him wonderful besides a few stories thrown out about him here and there. Also the character of Kate suddenly reversing herself about what her marriage was about I thought did not really work. There is nothing wrong with a character having been married before and finding love again. I don't like it when you read novels that somehow have the widow or widower somehow finding some random flaws in their former spouse that then allows them to move on easy peasy.
There was the plot-lines of Eby selling Lost Lake and Kate dealing with her grief over the loss of her husband. Frankly that is honestly all this novel really needed. Then we started to include so many other side plots that just did not work in this novel from other characters such as Lisette, Bulahdeen, and Selma. We also throw in the character of Wes and his issues and everything got to be too much.
The ending in my opinion was just one cliche after another. I think that since we have so many characters in this novel Ms. Allen made sure that all of the plot-lines were wrapped up though some of the wrap up felt really rushed to me while I was reading. Also certain things did not make a lot of sense (such as Kate's mother in law's complete transformation at the end). Also it was telegraphed pretty early how the novel would end so it was not a big surprise to me when everything was wrapped up in a nice neat bow.
The novel is about lakeside cabins called Lost Lake. Eby Pim and her deceased husband George saw a postcard with the cabins and bought and restored them. Living out there for decades Eby is starting to feel as if it may be time to move on from Lost Lake and see the world again like she was planning on doing when she was a newlywed. Eby's niece Kate comes to Lost Lake with her young daughter Devin to re-visit a time in Kate's life when she was happy. We have Kate dealing with the loss of her husband and finally coming back to herself after a year where she was "sleeping".
One of the best things about Sarah Addison Allen's novels is that she always interweaves a sense of magic in her books. The way her novels are written she can have a person believing that yes these things/events could happen. However, this novel is missing that feeling of wonder that I had when I read her other novels. I just felt that a lot of the writing and events that happened were flat. It felt to me like well of course this is the way that it happened and that was about it.
I ended up giving this novel just three stars because of the lack of development of the two leads, way too many plot lines, and a cliched and rushed ending.
I thought that Eby was an interesting character I wish we had delved more into her life back when she was married to George and what about him made him wonderful besides a few stories thrown out about him here and there. Also the character of Kate suddenly reversing herself about what her marriage was about I thought did not really work. There is nothing wrong with a character having been married before and finding love again. I don't like it when you read novels that somehow have the widow or widower somehow finding some random flaws in their former spouse that then allows them to move on easy peasy.
There was the plot-lines of Eby selling Lost Lake and Kate dealing with her grief over the loss of her husband. Frankly that is honestly all this novel really needed. Then we started to include so many other side plots that just did not work in this novel from other characters such as Lisette, Bulahdeen, and Selma. We also throw in the character of Wes and his issues and everything got to be too much.
The ending in my opinion was just one cliche after another. I think that since we have so many characters in this novel Ms. Allen made sure that all of the plot-lines were wrapped up though some of the wrap up felt really rushed to me while I was reading. Also certain things did not make a lot of sense (such as Kate's mother in law's complete transformation at the end). Also it was telegraphed pretty early how the novel would end so it was not a big surprise to me when everything was wrapped up in a nice neat bow.