The Lake by Natasha Preston Book Review

The Lake by Natasha Preston book summary

The Lake follows Esme and her friend Kayla. They were once campers at Camp Pine Lake and now they are returning as counselors. They are both pretty excited to be back at the camp and hoping to give the girls there the best time of their lives. Camp is supposed to be fun right? The girls Esme is helping take care of reminds her of herself when she was just a camper. That is up until she and Kayla did something pretty bad. Something that has really stuck with her and now that she’s back at camp it is coming back to haunt her. Will she be able to figure out who exactly is trying to scare her and everyone else?

What I thought about The Lake: 

So I’ve read a couple of books by Natasha Preston so I was pretty ecstatic to get the chance to read and review this one before it’s even published. This was a book I had assumed that I was going to quickly get declined for. But thankfully that ended up not being the case. I just hope I get approved more by the publishing company!

The Characters

The book mainly focuses on Esme. At least her point of view is the main one that we get. I actually really like her character and how much she really cares for the girls she’s counseling. You don’t get that with too many older teenagers. They typically want to look good for college and that’s understandable. But they also do a poor job of really caring for the kids that are there.

The only thing that bothered me about her is that she didn’t tell the person in charge of the camp what happened much sooner. I mean I get why. If she did, that probably would have made for a shorter and less interesting book. I guess it just always bothers me when teens try to take serious situations into their own hands. Just…why? Maybe I’m just out of touch but at this age, I really felt like I couldn’t accomplish much of anything and I know a lot of people my age felt the same way. 

Maybe kids now are just different. Different from the way I was raised and are lead to be more independent on things.

The Plot

The plot of the book is actually pretty good. It kind of brings back the nostalgia from when I was a kid because The Lake reminds me of R. L. Stine and Christopher Pike’s books. I think that’s what made me love the book so much. The middle of the book does kind of slow down a bit. That’s okay though because the ending picks up and OH MY GOD that ending. I think that was the best book ending I have read in a while. I typically go for thrillers and horror that actually have a shock factor and The Lake does exactly that!

The Lake is by far one of my favorites of Natasha Preston!

Have you read a book by Natasha Preston?

If you liked this post make sure to check out my review for The Cousins.

Books by Natasha Preston:

Awake 

Amazon | Bookshop

You Will Be Mine 

Amazon | Bookshop

The Lost     

Amazon | Bookshop        

The Twin     

Amazon | Bookshop          

The Cellar     

Amazon | Bookshop