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A review by tyto_alba
Harrow Lake by Kat Ellis
2.0
2.5 Stars
I feel like this book was a little too all over the place for my liking. It was hard to get pulled in for the first quarter or so because the main character was so annoying and unlikeable. She said the word "optimal" way, waaaaaaay too many times, for no reason that is ever given. It actually began making me angry to continuously have to see this word used. She also seems to hate everyone she comes across, being down right rude or hostile to even the people she doesn't hate.
Then the plot begins to become more interesting as she explores Harrow Lake and meets the people there. She begins hallucinating (?) or seeing strange things, and the "mystery" is actually compelling to read, especially as she finds more out about her mom. Unfortunately, what she finds out about her mom isn't handled with any kind of gravity. When she finally discovers this big "revelation" about her mom, it was already so painfully obvious that I spent most of the previous chapters angry at how embarrassingly stupid she is for somehow not seeing it. And then nothing comes of it anyway. It feels like it's only there as a twist without being a surprise at all to anyone but Lola, which is just plain frustrating.
There are also many plot threads that don't go anywhere, including the above revelation. Certain characters mean absolutely nothing to the plot (Mary Anne is a great example), and entire scenes are only there to be clunky "red herrings," though they presumably only exist to throw you off what to expect the genre of the book to be, I guess. For example, anything that happens in the museum and the several dream sequences. The ending (no spoilers!) feels wildly unearned because nothing at all leads to that point, raising more questions and answering some of the ones you did have in the most forced (and unbelievable/unrealistic) way possible.
Even character plot threads mean nothing. The grandmother was interesting because she was dealing with memory issues surrounding Lorelei and Lola looking so much alike and projecting onto Lola, and has a lot of anger and guilt. This is only briefly touched upon, making a potentially deep character utterly lack real depth, rendering the grandmother little more than a cheap scare tactic. Carter has issues with his family, but again, it's only mentioned to give the illusion of depth where there is none. We ultimately know little of Carter other than how other people in his life treat him. The shape of Carter is only formed by the shadows of other characters, and I don't really count that as development. Cora is there, and that's it. She shows up only briefly enough to tease that she has a personality, then she's gone.
The town itself could have been amazing. They are all begrudgingly obsessed with the movie Nightjar that brings in tourists, but all the personality and lore that goes into the town is dumped about halfway through to focus on "Mister Jitters," which is only interesting for a little until Mary Anne shows up and Lola becomes impossible to believe as a narrator. Not that I don't like unreliable narrators, but I like creepy small towns more. These two tropes could have gone wonderfully together, but the effect is more that they cancel each other out.
In conclusion, this book really wasn't for me. I felt disappointed with the development of the story, which is made worse because the only reason I powered through my initial dislike of Lola was for the creepy town atmosphere.
That said, this book seems to be generally loved, so I don't want to dissuade anyone from reading it if the synopsis seems interesting.
I feel like this book was a little too all over the place for my liking. It was hard to get pulled in for the first quarter or so because the main character was so annoying and unlikeable. She said the word "optimal" way, waaaaaaay too many times, for no reason that is ever given. It actually began making me angry to continuously have to see this word used. She also seems to hate everyone she comes across, being down right rude or hostile to even the people she doesn't hate.
Then the plot begins to become more interesting as she explores Harrow Lake and meets the people there. She begins hallucinating (?) or seeing strange things, and the "mystery" is actually compelling to read, especially as she finds more out about her mom. Unfortunately, what she finds out about her mom isn't handled with any kind of gravity. When she finally discovers this big "revelation" about her mom, it was already so painfully obvious that I spent most of the previous chapters angry at how embarrassingly stupid she is for somehow not seeing it. And then nothing comes of it anyway. It feels like it's only there as a twist without being a surprise at all to anyone but Lola, which is just plain frustrating.
There are also many plot threads that don't go anywhere, including the above revelation. Certain characters mean absolutely nothing to the plot (Mary Anne is a great example), and entire scenes are only there to be clunky "red herrings," though they presumably only exist to throw you off what to expect the genre of the book to be, I guess. For example, anything that happens in the museum and the several dream sequences. The ending (no spoilers!) feels wildly unearned because nothing at all leads to that point, raising more questions and answering some of the ones you did have in the most forced (and unbelievable/unrealistic) way possible.
Even character plot threads mean nothing. The grandmother was interesting because she was dealing with memory issues surrounding Lorelei and Lola looking so much alike and projecting onto Lola, and has a lot of anger and guilt. This is only briefly touched upon, making a potentially deep character utterly lack real depth, rendering the grandmother little more than a cheap scare tactic. Carter has issues with his family, but again, it's only mentioned to give the illusion of depth where there is none. We ultimately know little of Carter other than how other people in his life treat him. The shape of Carter is only formed by the shadows of other characters, and I don't really count that as development. Cora is there, and that's it. She shows up only briefly enough to tease that she has a personality, then she's gone.
The town itself could have been amazing. They are all begrudgingly obsessed with the movie Nightjar that brings in tourists, but all the personality and lore that goes into the town is dumped about halfway through to focus on "Mister Jitters," which is only interesting for a little until Mary Anne shows up and Lola becomes impossible to believe as a narrator. Not that I don't like unreliable narrators, but I like creepy small towns more. These two tropes could have gone wonderfully together, but the effect is more that they cancel each other out.
In conclusion, this book really wasn't for me. I felt disappointed with the development of the story, which is made worse because the only reason I powered through my initial dislike of Lola was for the creepy town atmosphere.
That said, this book seems to be generally loved, so I don't want to dissuade anyone from reading it if the synopsis seems interesting.