Reviews

Lakewood by Megan Giddings

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jbradley_reads's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.5

whatsamanthadoes's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Read for a book club.

Very interesting dystopian premise. Lena drops out of college to pay family debts by working for a government research program.

She has to sign an NDA and weird/brutally things are done to her and other participants. Or is it all just a dream?

Lena continued to endure these trials because of her devotion to her family. While I wish we would have got to know the characters a bit better, I really loved Lena, Charlie, and Deziree. I loved that Lena gave silly names for the people that worked at Lakewood. It caught me by surprise that the book change formats at times. There were parts in this book that had me ill (

teeth, mushrooms, apricots to name a few!

). There were parts about medical racism and preying on those in a financial crisis.

All of her dreams circled around the idea that she was having pieces of her taken or destroyed even when she would try to get them to see that she is a real person.

I wish there was a little more resolution in the ending, but

I'm interested to read Megan Giddings' future books.

Content Warnings

tatyanavogt's review against another edition

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3.0

This was pretty good. I did fall asleep while listening to it (I was just really tired) and woke up thinking that it wasn't that good but I went back and re-listened to the part I slept through and ended up really liking it.

I will admit that I wasn't blown away by the book, I wasn't overly moved and I wasn't super impressed by it. But it was interesting and I did like it. No big twists or turns, but still a fun ride. I was going to give it a 4 because I did like it, but when I really think to it I dont think its remarkable in any way, so I decided to be true to my rating and give it a 3. With my rating a 3 is a good thing. I did enjoy it.

Spoiler thoughts:

Spoiler

That scene with the blue eyes and the girl telling her to take off the contacts really got to me. It felt like a comment on colorism and white washing. It was sad to hear how much more attention she got for having such a white feature like blue eyes and even more sad that she also got extreme hate for it from the women.

I will admit when she first went to lakewood and mentioned the name to her mother and her mother reacted funny I knew then that her mother had done it too years before. I also figured it might have something to do with her health, but I didn't think too much about it. So it was nice to get the confirmation at the end.

It was also really interesting to see how she was loosing herself and becoming unreliable. Forgetting things, and then second guessing stuff. I wonder if like that woman she also killed people based off of that memory of her being at the place with the white woman and having a gun in her purse along with a list of names but not remembering anything else.

I do feel like I missed some stuff by listening to the audiobook and I wish I could flip through a physical copy to see if I actually missed anything or if that was just how the book is because of the topic.

But yeah, it was pretty cool.

nkerekes's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Strong character development? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

suppyguppy's review against another edition

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3.0

Lakewood follows Lena, a young Black woman, as she volunteers for a medical research study in return for pay and benefits that seem almost too good to be true, including (most importantly to Lena) health insurance for her sick mother.
Based on the actual suffering and deception Black Americans have endured under the guise of "science" or "medicine" throughout American history, Giddings builds a fictional psychological thriller on a foundation of truth. The plausibility makes the story that much more terrifying and gutwrenching.
Far from a light and fluffy read, Lakewood is difficult to stomach at times and even made me feel physically ill. The content is heavy and depressing and the racism Lena faces is repulsive. I don't say this as criticism though, I think the heaviness of the book strengthens the power of its social commentary and leaves a lasting impression.
I admire the bold message this book sends, and that is why I gave it three stars, but there were too many things about it that detracted from my ability to enjoy the story for me to give it any higher of a rating.
My biggest issue was that I wished I could have had more insight into Lena's thoughts and really gotten to know Lena more. Sometimes, something happens that I would love to know Lena's thoughts or feelings about, but we don't get any indication of her reaction at all.
For example:

Spoiler

in the initial sign-up process for the medical research study, the form Lena has to fill out has incredibly suspicious and invasive questions. Questions like, "What are the log-in credentials to all of your social media accounts?" and "What are some security questions and answers that you use often?" These aren't subtle red flags, they're absolutely ridiculous things to ask of a person. And yet, we don't get any indication of Lena's reaction to them, external or internal. If she thinks they're strange or suspicious, we aren't told. If she attempts to rationalize them to herself, we aren't told. We're just told that she continues to fill out the form.

Non-reactions to things like this made Lena feel kind of robotic at times. I kept wondering "so is she just like.. okay with all of this??" I completely understand that she would go through with certain things because of her motivation for helping her sick mother, but I would've liked some indication that she had an opinion at all about some of these situations (whether it be positive, negative or complicated). Later, once things escalate, we do get to see some reaction and thoughts from Lena, so eventually I did get confirmation that she is not, in fact, a robot, but I still wish I could've had more insight into her thoughts and not just what was happening to her.
Another thing is that I wish the research study had been more deceptive and insidious rather than obviously and consistently evil from the start. I know this is personal preference, but this whole review is just my personal opinion anyways. I really like stories where everything is seemingly fine at first with slow revelation that something is not right and then a climax where it is confirmed that things are very wrong. Instead, the Lakewood research group is consistently evil and suspicious all the way through with no real climax and no possible doubt at any point that what they are doing is wrong and horrible.
Also, they do not try to deceive Lena about the purpose of the study, instead they just don't tell her anything (except for something vague about memory studies), so there isn't really any deception or cover story to debunk, which is less fun and satisfying for the reader. It's more like, "we are going to do all this senseless evil stuff to you, but you need the money so we don't need to bother making up a lie about why, we're just going to go ahead and do it." It was unsatisfying that

Spoiler

the purpose of the mysterious and strange things they did to Lena is never explained. Unless I was supposed to figure it out and I just didn't, which would be my bad.

Ultimately, I don't regret reading this book, I think it is good social commentary, I just wasn't satisfied by it as a thriller or mystery.

thissagreads's review against another edition

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Honestly after 3 hours, I STILL couldn’t get invested, because the entire story is too disjointed to make any sense. Very frustrating since I was looking forward to this book.

Content Warnings