Lakesedge (World at the Lake's Edge, #1) by Lyndall Clipstone

  

My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

Category: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Content: Strong language, Self harm, Child abuse, Attempted suicide, Some intimate parts that include a lot of kissing and touching, Masturbation is alluded to.

 

There are monsters in the world.

When Violeta Graceling arrives at haunted Lakesedge estate, she expects to find a monster. She knows the terrifying rumors about Rowan Sylvanan, who drowned his entire family when he was a boy. But neither the estate nor the monster are what they seem.

There are monsters in the woods.

As Leta falls for Rowan, she discovers he is bound to the Lord Under, the sinister death god lurking in the black waters of the lake. A creature to whom Leta is inexplicably drawn…

There’s a monster in the shadows, and now it knows my name.

Now, to save Rowan—and herself—Leta must confront the darkness in her past, including unraveling the mystery of her connection to the Lord Under. 

 

Reading this book reminded me of one of the reasons I don't read very much YA anymore. Everything is so overly romanticized. And since this is a gothic fantasy, I expected that to an extent, but not to this extent. There is so much mud and lake water in this book, that I should have wanted to shower after reading it. I mean, mud stinks. Lake water stinks. People who have practically been wallowing in both, stink! A person who is literally full of it and spewing it out would stink. There is no way anyone would want to kiss that. But the characters in this book never seem to notice the stench. The most we get is "He smells of blood and leaves, and the lake" or something like that. And of course she wants to kiss him. Violetta wears the same mud covered dress all day and into the next day without thinking of changing it. She does this more than once. Who does that? And of course he still wants to get romantic with her.

Overall, this was an odd book. It was dark and strange and not really what I was expecting, but that gorgeous cover drew me in. There were both inconsistencies and too much repetition in the story, and at times the author would state a word three times instead of just once, like this, "It was cold, cold, cold." It doesn't make it any colder if it's said three times. One "cold" would have gotten the point across. Although I didn't completely dislike Violeta, she could be annoying and not very bright at times. She never thought anything through as much as she should have. There were things about the book I did like. I liked the gothic fantasy setting, the tortured love interest (although the romance came on too instant and didn't have the enemy-to-lovers build up I wanted), and the supporting characters, even though they were not very well fleshed out.

The end of this book dragged on for too long, and once I finally got to the very end it was very unsatisfying, and I would have preferred everything to be wrapped up in this one book, because sadly, I don't think I care enough to see what happens in the next one.