bookstuff's review against another edition
4.0
Underlake is an interesting take on a poor little rich girl story. Katie Welch's mom is a successful career woman who sends Katie to an exclusive private school. Katie gets to hang out with other rich kids, who, like her, have a generous allowance and little supervision. Despite this Katie generally "makes good choices", does well in school, and her mom doesn't worry about her, being too busy working and figuring out her own dating life.
The story starts with an unwelcome disruption in Katie's life - her mom and her are spending all summer, not in a fashionable vacation spot as usual, but in a upstate NY backwoods to renovate a summer cottage they own. Katie's never been there before, since it's usually leased to someone, but the tenant has died and her mom wants it ready to get back on the market. This is very upsetting to Katie, who would rather with her friends. But a lot of things have been upsetting Katie lately, and she's not sure why. So far it all seems to be a typical mainstream YA novel, until they get to the lake, and there's a ghost, and a strangely old-fashioned by cute guy.
This story is somewhere between fantasy and supernatural and spiritual. It's closer to a mythopoeic tale than a coming of age story, though it has elements of the latter. Instead of an obvious fairy tale underpinning though it uses a Faith-based structure.
I liked it a lot and I would recommend it to teens and adults. If I have one complaint it would be that I think the epilogue type ending was superfluous.
Disclosure: I was provided a complimentary review copy of this book. I have a longer review of it on my blog - www.bookhorde.org - where I also review many other conservative books.
The story starts with an unwelcome disruption in Katie's life - her mom and her are spending all summer, not in a fashionable vacation spot as usual, but in a upstate NY backwoods to renovate a summer cottage they own. Katie's never been there before, since it's usually leased to someone, but the tenant has died and her mom wants it ready to get back on the market. This is very upsetting to Katie, who would rather with her friends. But a lot of things have been upsetting Katie lately, and she's not sure why. So far it all seems to be a typical mainstream YA novel, until they get to the lake, and there's a ghost, and a strangely old-fashioned by cute guy.
This story is somewhere between fantasy and supernatural and spiritual. It's closer to a mythopoeic tale than a coming of age story, though it has elements of the latter. Instead of an obvious fairy tale underpinning though it uses a Faith-based structure.
I liked it a lot and I would recommend it to teens and adults. If I have one complaint it would be that I think the epilogue type ending was superfluous.
Disclosure: I was provided a complimentary review copy of this book. I have a longer review of it on my blog - www.bookhorde.org - where I also review many other conservative books.
rlangemann's review against another edition
2.0
Kindle freebie. Hmm, mixed thoughts here. Good writing. Pretty frank portrayal of current high school culture (quite inappropriate at times). Hint of fantasy. Some really good deeper points.
More...