The Lake of Dreams Book Review

I had the opportunity to read The Lake of Dreams by Kim Edwards for this month's BlogHer book club, and I was so excited to get started. I love Edwards' writing style and this book was no exception - I flew through the first 150 pages of the book, intrigued especially by what I anticipated would be a big central theme of the book - water - and Lucy's evolving realization that she is living in the past while almost everyone else has moved forward with their lives.

Lucy Jarrett is a young woman who pursued her dreams as a young adult - leaving the Finger Lakes region of New York for college out West after her father's death, and then traveling the world. When we meet Lucy, she's at a crossroads in her life - living in Japan with her partner, Yoshi, but feeling lost without a job she's passionate about. Lucy returns home to visit her family after her mom is involved in a car accident, and what ensues is a journey through Lucy's family history and in the process, Lucy finds herself and realizes that what she thought all along was a pursuit of her dreams might actually have been an escape from the past.

I appreciate history and I appreciate family history.  But I lost interest in the detailed and drawn-out family history / mystery that Lucy sets out to solve in her time at home. Letters and correspondence Lucy discovers don't read true, and instead seem to serve as convenient plot pushers. At many times throughout the book I found myself frustrated with how easily things fall into place for Lucy as she tries to put together the puzzle of her family's secret past, seemingly at the expense of her relationships with the family she has right in front of her.  And yet, this tedious portion of the book makes sense as Lucy comes to terms with her own life. In the end, I enjoyed the book enough - especially as current Jarrett family dynamics come into play and a quest for Lucy's personal happiness surfaces from time to time, though I did lose interest in water as a central theme - which I thought started out as a powerful opportunity for Edwards - as I got bogged down in Lucy's treacherous search for family archives.  Hop on over to the Lake of Dreams BlogHer Book Club page for more on this book.

This was a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.