Reviews with content warning for Toxic friendship - The Lake of Dead Languages

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There are parts of this book that I adored, but there are many aspects that frustrated me because they could have been so much better. I think if I had found this book when I was younger, I would have adored this book. The book is a slow, atmospheric, soft gothic kind of thriller. There's a bit of tension that remains all the way through. The ending is a bit predictable but delivers in a satisfying way.

Cons: Slow start and it takes a while to get into. I didn't feel like I had a grip on the book until well past the first 100 pages, and the book didn't feel exciting until page 200. For a literary read, that's fine. For something marketed as a thriller? Not great. The story suffers from a pacing problem and a structural problem. It simply takes too long for the foundation of the story to begin. There's too much motif build-up in the beginning when plot and background and character development could be happening. The motif build-up would be forgivable if it wasn't so repetitive. There are a lot of references to the snow, ice, and lake. I think the explanation for the sound a frozen lake makes was repeated at least three times. There are subtle allusions to a mysterious past, but it feels like too much pours out once the author gave in to the audience. The entire plot grinds to a halt to deal with the past which causes this middle section to feel like a completely different story. The last third of the book does a much better job of balancing motifs, themes, character development, and weaving memory with the present-day plot. Although, this comes at the sacrifice of subtlety. There are some mysteries that are written too plainly and become frustratingly obvious too soon. While many characters have their secrets and are fairly interesting, they still feel somewhat two-dimensional. The main character has so much potential to be a thoroughly interesting, morally grey character, but there's a tangible reluctance to let the good characters have unlikeable qualities. The main character had so much potential to be an unreliable narrator, and I was disappointed that she was relegated to merely a victim of circumstance

... twice.

Pros: My absolute favorite trope in these dark academia-like books is all-consuming toxic friendships and the ensuing drama. This book de-effing-livered on that front. The melodrama is at a high with ghost lakes, history repeating itself, academic pressure and competition, stolen diaries, adolescent woes, taboo love, buried secrets resurfacing in gruesome ways, suicides, murders, shady pasts, ancient Pagan rituals, and tragic folktales. There's so many layers and things that are woven into the plot that keep you reading until the end. When the book is finally able to flip back and forth between the present and the past, the book has an obsessive feel that's absolutely captivating.

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