Fareya's Reviews > Lost Lake

“Misfits need a place to get away, too. All that trying to fit in is exhausting.”

Books by Sarah Addison Allen are not for everyone, but they work marvelously for me. She writes about the ordinary; no elaborate world building, no complex plots just simple everyday occurrences with a sprinkle of magic and plenty of inspiration. I always have an unexplainable strange feeling of contention after finishing one of Sarah Addison Allen's stories.

Lost Lake is an enchanting story filled with hope, it is about healing and second chances, about letting go and starting over. The characters in here are charming, quirky and one of a kind, yet one might be able to relate with their oddities. Little backstories associated with them all, give a glimpse into each of their lives. These stories provide just the perfect dose of information needed to get an insight into the peculiarity of every individual. And alongside, there are random magical touches throughout, an excellent portrayal of magical realism that feels almost real.

"You can't change where you come from, but you can change where you go from here. Just like a book. If you don't like the ending, you make up a new one."

Eby Pim is the owner of Lost Lake - a quaint lakeside property with a bunch of cabin rentals. She and her husband George bought this property fifty years ago and turned it into a charming vacation spot over the years. However, since after her husband's death a few years back, Lost Lake has started to decline in spite of Eby's best efforts.

A few hundred miles north of Lost Lake in Atlanta is Kate - a recently widowed young mother of an eight year old girl, Devin. One day while going through an old trunk in her attic she comes across a postcard send by her great aunt Eby inviting her back to Lost Lake. Remembering how much she loved her trip to that enchanting place as a twelve year old, Kate decides to make an impromptu trip down south and see her aunt and show Devin the place where she had the best summer of her life, where she nearly kissed a boy and where she didn't want to leave.

And as Kate arrives at Lost Lake, its an entirely new world. Other characters come into play and as their lives coincide, so begins a charming story about a bunch of misfits, a story of love, loss and redemption, a story about the power of choice, of belief and of lost chances and new beginnings. Lost Lake is a totally immersive story to just get lost in.

“Don't you wish you could take a single childhood memory and blow it up into a bubble and live inside it forever?”