This was one of the shittiest endings I’ve ever read.

Best friends Esme and Kayla are back at Camp Pine Lake as counselors in training, and Esme is delighted to be back in a place where she loved being a camper. But Esme and Kayla have a secret. The last time they were at Camp Pine Lake, something terrible happened. Something they never told anyone about. But there is one person out there who knows what they did, and they want Esme and Kayla to come clean. They want them to suffer for what they did. They might even want them to die. The lake never

The only shock I've received in terms of Natasha Preston has been when I found out she is in her thirties, and not 14. The juvenile writing is just... so laughable that the only way I managed to get through it was to treat it the way I treat B horror movies: allowing myself to laugh out loud at the poor dialogue writing and shake my head and laugh at everything else, predictable cliches and all.

⭐⭐This was just not my jam. I should probably preface this: Anyone who is working on tag lines for their novels needs to be careful about giving your readers expectations and then not delivering on them. When this author is described as "the undisputed queen of YA thriller" and someone like Karen McManus is under the same publisher — that is kind of a lot to tout, and definitely makes someone like me, who reads a lot of the genre, look at things more critically because I want to be wowed. Becaus...

I’m sorry, IS THERE A CHAPTER MISSING? No??? Well, that’s one of the most unsatisfying endings I’ve ever read, then.The beginning of The Lake was slow, and the build-up felt underwhelming. I don’t know why, but I thought the secret Esme and Kayla had would be… bigger? Yes, accidentally setting a fire and leaving some random girl in the woods to potentially burn was bad, but they were 8 years old. Having all this occur because of that seemed unrealistic, for lack of a better word.The middle picke...

This was a YA, thriller/horror book that was so vivid and movie-like I could just feel myself back at camp again with Esme and Kayla. I was absolutely having flashbacks of meeting other CITs and talking about the cute boys and staying up past campers' bedtimes. All of the setting pieces of this book were great. AND the point of view of the teenagers was very real. However, the plot fell pretty flat for me. We just ran around blindly in terms of not giving anything away from the girls' childhoods...

All I’ve gotta say is: 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

Bleak, creepy camp setting meets I know what you did last summer movie storyline provides us intriguing YA thriller premise! And when a skillful thriller author like Ms. Preston on board, you may dive into this promising mystery without thinking any further! Two close friends did something really bad at the same location a few years ago, return back as CTs! The storyline is simple and interesting. Esme, more observant, smart, quiet one as Kayla is more pretentious, social, animated : two best f...

This was lowkey a huge waste of my time.

That ending made me want to put my head through a wall.

2 ☆ rating bc of the ending!!! HUHHH?? they all just die at the end boomboomboomboom & lillian throws the gun at esme to frame her over.an.accident?? home girl is PSYCHO. and what was with her killing all those deer and people.. i love listening to true crime podcasts and lillian definitely has all the traits of a serial killer😭 i didn’t like the ending at all though, it felt too rushed and random

A super creepy summer camp, the teens in charge who all have something to hide, and the sinister something that is haunting them from the surrounding woods, all combined to make this an intriguing and eerie, yet overly dramatic, horror story.I had a few minor issues, such as the lack of adults running or children attending the camp, and I did feel events spiralled crazily fast in the second half, but I can't deny that I had a fun time here nor that the final page left me open-mouthed and eager f...

The Lake by Natasha Preston is a young adult thriller with perhaps a touch of horror. Seeing that this was set at a summer camp and being a horror fan I had images of Jason stalking Crystal Lake and was excited to pick this up to see just what this one was about.Off we go to Camp Pine Lake where Esme and Kayla are now, at seventeen, returning to the camp to train to become counselors. The girls once attended Camp Pine Lake themselves but those are days they prefer to not think about as they prom...

1.5 STARSSTOP READING IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS. I’m spoiling the plot to save you the trouble of wasting your time and money. I had such high hopes for THE LAKE, but I’ve never liked Natasha Preston’s story execution. What I wanted to be a fast-paced, heart-thumping read was a slow book with a ridiculous ending. Ten years ago, at age eight, Esme and her best friend Kayla started a bonfire at camp that got out of hand and burned another little girl, Lillian. Now, everyone reading th...

This was a fast paced YA mystery, centered on Esme and Kayla, who attended a summer camp years ago and left when something bad happened, then returned as counselors in training (CITs) at 17 years old.. The story is told friends Esme’s POV. There were a lot of red herrings in this book and I found myself suspecting everyone at some point. The messages that were left around the camp made for a super creepy setting.On the other hand, I never did understand why they would choose to return to this ca...

I went into this book pretty blind and came out with my eyes opened to a new-to-me author whose books I want to binge read. The Lake tells the story of Kayla and Esme, two teen girls who are returning to their childhood camp, but this time as counselors. They attended this camp when they were 7 and 8 years old, but never returned because of something horrible that happened. What unfolds as they get reacquainted with the camp is the stuff nightmares are made of. Kayla and Esme vowed never to talk...

Holy mother of mercy! What did I just read?!? I love how Scooby-Doo-esque this book is. Is the bad guy that person, or this person? I'm one of those people that have it solved pretty early on in the book, and I was shocked by the antagonist. And the ending?!? I won't spoil anything, but I was NOT expecting that! Best NP book I've read since The Lost.

What the heck was that? Hands down one of the worst books I’ve read in a while. The writing was juvenile and read like it was written by an unskilled teenager. The characters weren’t all that great. The way-too-current pop culture references will date this book almost immediately. The plot was vaguely interesting but got dumber as the book went on. The fact that the police didn’t get called almost right away is laughable and stupid. And the ending is atrocious. If I hadn’t read an e-copy of the

ARC provided by publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. I picked this book up because the cover and the synopsis sounded really enticing and I was itching for a good thriller! However, the moment I opened the ebook and read the first few chapters, I knew this was a bad decision. My first and biggest gripe with this books is that it's very poorly written. The writing is way too juvenile, in my opinion, and doesn't do a good job of either creating a g

Thanks to Delacorte Press and NetGalley for an eARC copy of this book!This is my first book by Preston, and unfortunately, I was ultimately disappointed. I was hoping for a quick, spooky romp down memory lane - I used to love RL Stein's horror/thriller books as a kid/teen, as formulaic and predictable as they were, and I was anticipating something similar. Either RL Stein's works wouldn't age well, or I myself have aged out of that demographic (or, most likely, both). I found The Lake lacking in...