Lakewood: A Novel

There was so much momentum and I really wanted the ending to be full of plot twists and things that I didn't see coming, but in the end it felt quite incomplete with lots of things that weren't explained but maybe the author wanted a more open-ended ending because she didn't really explain how this organization came to be or what really were the experiments.

I really liked the concept of this book, and I found it really interesting until about 3/4 of the way in, at which point it felt like the author lost the plot. The commentary on human experimentation, particularly the use of POC and/or impoverished bodies to do so is an important aspect of science to consider, but this felt like it started getting lost partway through the book because what was happening became less and less clear to me. Partly, I...read more

"𝑷𝒆𝒐𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒔𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒄𝒉 𝒔𝒕𝒖𝒅𝒊𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒔𝒊𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒓𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒔𝒕. 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒅𝒐𝒏’𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒘𝒉𝒚 𝒂 𝒈𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒏𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒆𝒙𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒐𝒏 𝒊𝒕𝒔 𝒄𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒛𝒆𝒏𝒔. 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒅𝒐 𝒊𝒕 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒄𝒂𝒏. 𝑩𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒖𝒔𝒆 ...read more

Content warning for medical abuse, body horror, manipulation, gaslighting, and related topics. This book is creepy. The setting is atmospheric and weird, and I think the book relies a lot on the protagonist not knowing what is going on. For that reason, it felt like everything happened to her, instead of her making any choices. I also thought it got to be repetitive and I would have liked to see more of what we got in the last quarter of the book...read more

This book was like a fever dream in the best way.