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

emotional hopeful lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This was.. fine. I think I can understand why this works for so many people but it didn't stand out as Every Summer After did to me. The main reasons are:

  1. As much as I want to 😍 for this "we spend one day together and fall for each other so hard we think back to that day ten years later", it's too instalovey for me.
  2. I'm surprised this isn't mentioned in more reviews, but to me this was blatant emotional cheating on both ends. Fern and Will are both in relationships when they meet and swoon over each other. A lot of people criticized the cheating in Every Summer After, which I didn't mind as much since the relationship status of those characters as a couple at that time was dubious and it was
    just a one night stand = ONE SCENE
    , in Meet me at the Lake it's literally half of the story. I guess what I learned is, to me, emotional cheating is a bigger issue than
    a ONS
    .
  3. Miscommunication, or rather not communicating at all. This was just really annoying and I didn't fully understand Will's actions towards the end.

Honestly, the character I really wanted more of was Peter. He seems like such a sweet man who deserves nothing but good things.
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