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Oct 08, 2007

Kate rated it:

Hmm. One of those books you want to be done with but have to finish to see how it ends. Kind of a thriller, kind of a mystery, the narrator is a former student of all-girls school Heart Lake who comes back to teach Latin as an adult. In her time there as a student, both of her roommates committed suicide, and now someone is seemingly recreating this past aggressively and accusatorily (I may have made this word up; if not, I spelled it wrong). The protagonist seemed either really dumb or really i More...

2 comments like (11 people liked it)

Oct 27, 2007

Molly rated it:

I am always drawn to any aisle with books, and I've often scanned the titles at Target, remembering bits of titles for the library or for the independent bookstore in town.

And it began fine, with that ghostly tone, but quickly took a predictable turn, and even worse--certain instances within the book seemed to be explained to the reader, as if the reader weren't smart enough to catch symbol, metaphor, theme. This became less about language (so early) and easily about faulty twists. More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 09, 2011

Darren rated it:

I'm only about 20% into this novel, but I'm already impressed by the seemingly effortless but genuinely elegant prose. This lady can write. Several of the characters (in both the past and in the present) reach their hands up from the page and become spooky real. I'm crossing my fingers that it doesn't fall apart as I go farther.

***Okay, finished it. Interestingly enough, there were so many people who compared this to The Secret History that I read it too. Oddly enough, I liked Carol More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 23, 2009

Lisa rated it:

I really loved this book. Yes, it was a bit predictable, I figured out who it was pretty quickly. But I loved the setting at an all girls' school, isolation, ice and silence. And Goodman knows something about teachers, she picks up on the nuances. She knows about girls who cut themselves and wonders why? I have sent some of my own students to the counselor with cuttings, scarings done with pens, pins, erasers and paper clips. why, I want to ask them. This author gets that. I know it's a good boo More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Sep 25, 2011

Enrique rated it:

A shocking secret between siblings partway through “The Lake of Dead Languages” sets off a torrent of Hitchcockian plot twists-and-turns as windy as the windiest mountain road with as many blind curves you never see coming until…until it’s too late and you sit stunned, eyes all enormo-like, like you’re driving off a cliff, too shocked to scream. Though I’m not suggesting you disregard the first 243 pages of what’s an already intriguing whodunit mystery staged around a lost journal and an oft-le More...

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Mar 02, 2009

Sabine rated it:

For someone who hates first person present tense, I sure am picking up a lot of books lately written in it, and surprisingly liking them enough to not let the writing style bother me too much.
This is the story of a Latin teacher who after splitting up with her husband goes back to teach at the private girls school that she had attended. The same school where her two roommates had committed suicide their senior year. Now back, she finds the events of her schooldays replaying themselves thro More...

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Feb 09, 2009

bookczuk rated it:

An okay, but somewhat transparent mystery-ish novel, that was written in a nice readable style. I can't say there was anything particularly surprising about it or anything revealed that I hadn't already cottoned to, but I did like sitting curled up in my chair on a glum Saturday afternoon and escaping into the book. I also liked the descriptions of winter on the lake. Even though I went to university in Upstate New York (though a few years earlier than Jane went to Vassar), I kept picturing He More...

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Aug 28, 2011

Blake rated it:

This was the first of this author's that I had read- and I loved it. It had all the elements of what makes a good eerie mystery novel- for women. I can't really see myself recommending this to a man. That's not being sexist but it's easy to explain. Lead female character flees with 4 year old child to former boarding school set in brooding frozen upper New York isolated country to teach LATIN (of all things) in hot house atmosphere of teenage girls performing fake Goddess rituals that involv More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 12, 2011

Dardenitaaa rated it:

An all girls’ school. A Latin Class. A troubled magistra with a shady alumna past. Students writing Latin phrases on their arms and razor-slicing their wrists open. Stolen Diaries. Secret Pregnancies. Taboo Love. Suicide on ice, water and dorm rooms. Academic Pressures. Friendships gone wrong. Ghost lakes and tragic folklore. History Repeating itself.

Relax, I’m not spoiling the entire book yet. If you’re a fan of mysteries with gothic touches, and thought the themes I just listed above More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 29, 2011

Alexis rated it:

I appreciated this book. It didnt fall into every cliche that I thought it would. I am very very good at predicting the endings of novels, but she made it impossible to predict the ending until about 3/4ths of the book- kept my mind reeling. I loved that!

Her prose is languid and beautiful but I have to admit sometimes I got a little frustrated at with it. She seemed to kind of get caught up in the description of things that didnt really matter- but it wasnt enough to really make me More...

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May 10, 2011

Barbara rated it:

I don’t know why I picked up this book, but it must have been based on a bookseller’s recommendations. I had no idea what to expect, but the book quickly drew me in. The protagonist, Jane Hudson, has taken refuge from her failed marriage by returning to her former boarding school in upstate New York. Pieces of the journal she kept during her senior year start appearing, reminding her of the tragedies 20 years ago – her roommate’s suicide, and then the other roommate and her brother drowning More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 01, 2011

Jessica rated it:

I'd heard this book recommended somewhere and got it from the library to give it a try. The story takes place at a boarding school in New England, where the narrator has returned many years after her own schooling there to become the Latin teacher. The book gradually reveals a sinister mystery regarding the death of the narrator's two roommates while they were students, and ties these deaths into events that are happening at the school in the present day. I figured out the mystery a while before More...

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Jan 01, 2011

Tony rated it:

Goodman, Carol. THE LAKE OF DEAD LANGUAGES. (2002). ***. This is a novel that deals with memory, loss, and the phenomenon of suicide among young girls. The heroine of the novel, Jane Hudson, left the Heart Lake School for Girls in the Adirondacks after a terrible tragedy. The week before her graduation from that secluded center of learning, three lives were taken – all victims of suicide. Now Jane has returned to the school as a Latin teacher, recently separated from her husband, and with More...

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Oct 02, 2010

Silentchelsea rated it:

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Sep 14, 2010

Kristen rated it:

I really enjoyed this gothic page-turner. Goodman is a fantastic, atmospheric writer, even if she does over-rely on a few techniques: characters are constantly paling or blushing; shadows are constantly splitting off from rocks.

In the last few chapters, my attention attenuated a bit, since I'd solved all the mystery elements (thanks to her skilled deployment of dramatic irony) much, much sooner than the narrator, who's, shall we say, not the sharpest tool in the shed.

T More...

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Jul 18, 2010

Renee rated it:

I really enjoyed Goodman's writing, but I had to remove stars because I figured out all of the plot twists before they happened, which made for a bit of an anticlimactic ending. I spent the second half of the book wanting to shake Jane and say "REALLY?! This is painfully obvious!!!" I really can't say if this predictability is due to Goodman's inadequacies or my teenage tendency to read V.C. Andrews books. Things that Goodman seems to consider shocking were really pretty tame compared More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 13, 2010

Oroboros72 rated it:

This is the first Carol Goodman book that I read, and despite myself I read two of her others even after being so irritated with this one. And I felt the exact same way about all of them. They all have great symbolism, exciting twists, interesting layers of metaphor and intertwined stories. And they are all utterly ruined by Goodman not giving her reader any credit whatsoever. When you almost have that satisfied 'Ah, I have figured something out' or 'ah, that symbol has reappeared here' She More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 12, 2010

Cate rated it:

I read this over my spring break senior year of Kenyon, so perhaps I have fond memories of that time, all alone on campus except for a few other people who couldn't pull their comps together. When I'd made especially good progress researching and writing, I'd go to the bookstore (alas--best bookstore in the world done to death by new corportate college president who removed the kiddie tower, the used books, and the fairy tale character banners!) and read The Lake of Dead Languages.
Basical More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 18, 2011

Julia rated it:

This mystery was chosen by an online book group in which I participate for its location: the Adirondacks; specifically, a private girls’ school in Adirondack Park. Jane Hudson graduated from there after two of her classmates died in their senior year. Grown up, divorced, she has returned to the school to be the Latin teacher. The school, once a mansion, is on Heart Lake and its motto is Cor te reducit or, the heart leads you back. From the first there seems to be something fishy about the school More...

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Oct 02, 2011

Eileen rated it:

This is one of those books I wanted to be done with, but I also wanted to find out the truth behind the events. It's an eerie and cold mystery novel that deals with memories, death, loss and guilt. Not a book I would have chosen for myself to read, but I always like a challenge.I want to thank my Goodreads friend Jen for trying to broaden my horizons by giving me this book and sharing a book with me that she obviously enjoyed reading.

During our senior year Lucy Toller was sent to the More...

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Jan 26, 2010

Jaemi rated it:

Jane Hudson's early life was one of much tribulation and loneliness. She had no real friends, and try as she might, she could never please her mother. But all that changed in High School, when she met and was taken in by the Toller siblings. Matt & Lucy are the world to Jane, and when they take her under her wing, helping her to prepare for the the Iris Scholarship - a full ride to the local Boarding School to the girl who scores highest in Latin - she starts to have some hope for her life.
More...

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Sep 20, 2007

Beth rated it:

My friend Geeta often recommends and lends to me the kinds of books that once started, must be read through in 48 hours or less, no matter what else I should be doing. This is one of those well plotted, "I knew it!"; "wait, I didn't think of *that*!" books. Not a great literary, mystery, but a good, page-turning one with plenty of intrigue about what goes on among girls and women who must keep, discover, and resdiscover one another's secrets.

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 31, 2012

Lindsay rated it:

Let's just go ahead and get this out of the way; this book was trying really hard to be 'The Secret History'. All the elements were there: group of students under the tutelage of an exclusive teacher, mysterious deaths, strange familial relations, and dead languages. And, as many have said before me the comparison does a disservice, since Donna Tartt's novel is one my favorites. But that doesn't mean I can't be objective. I actually really enjoyed this book. It satisfied the soapy, scandal and s More...

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Oct 29, 2010

Sarah rated it:

Jane Hudson left Heart Lake School for Girls twenty years ago, after the suicide of her two best friends and the boy of her dreams. Now she is back teaching the subject they all loved. When signs from her past start to pop up she starts to worry that the real story of what happened her senior year will come to light. When these events start to repeat herself Jane realizes that she may be in more danger than she ever thought possible, and that the lies she told twenty years ago were the reason fo More...

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Jul 31, 2011

Kurt rated it:

This is Carol Goodman's first novel, and while I am disappointed that she had not found her confident and snobby voice yet (in fact, she seems to borrow Agatha Christie's voice when it comes to the details of her over-arching mystery), this book still has a great deal of charm. It tells the creepy story of a woman who returns to teach Latin at the boarding school she once attended, and her past starts coming back to haunt her. There are suicides that may be murders, and dark secrets coming to li More...

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Jul 13, 2010

Tahira rated it:

I just finished reading Carol Goodman's suspenseful _The Lake of Dead Languages_. I found myself interested in a lot of the thematic elements of the novel, such as adolescence, female relationships and local legends. She certainly has produced a page-turner, which is perfect for a summer read. However, a couple of issues I had with the book are the fact that Goodman repeats details word-for-word on a few different occasions. I find this kind of redundancy fairly sloppy considering all the work t More...

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Sep 16, 2011

Roberta rated it:

Ho adorato questo libro. Ammetto anch'io che l'originalità non è forse il punto forte di questo romanzo, ma le vicende che racconta mi hanno tenuto incollata alle pagine fino alla fine. Jane Hudson torna dopo vent'anni (e una figlia, e un matrimonio fallito) al collegio di Heart Lake. Vent'anni prima era una studentessa con borsa di studio, ora è l'insegnante di latino. Un ritorno quasi scontato, volendo prendere sul serio il motto della scuola "Cor te reducit", ovvero il cuore ti ripo More...

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Nov 01, 2009

Lori rated it:

This is a suspenseful, easy to read, novel that will keep you turning pages. Carol Goodman is an excellent writer that uses visual imagery paticularly well. The reader is easily able to conjure up the Adirondack setting of Heart Lake Academy for Girls with bone chilling detail especially the descriptions of the lake freezing and the sounds the ice makes. Kudo's to Goodman who explains in the back of my edition her studies and inquiries into the process a lake goes through in the freezing proc More...

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Jul 13, 2009

Jake rated it:

The Night Villa, Carol Goodman's most recent thriller, is one of my favorite books to recommend. I was expecting this one to be similar--and it was, in that I couldn't put it down. Otherwise, though Goodman's style is completely different (and just as good): this is a novel about a woman, Jane, who leaves her husband and takes a position at her old boarding school to teach Latin. A few weeks into the semester, she opens her homework folder and finds a page torn from the journal she kept during h More...

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Jun 02, 2011

Kelley rated it:

The Lake of Dead Languages makes it easy for readers to immediately become wrapped up. The way Goodman writes reminds me of poetry, and I was able to tell that choosing the right words just comes naturally to her. This is a rare thing and I want to praise her for creating a book that I just couldn't put down. After reading her short note at the end of the novel, I realized just how much of the story was mirrored from her own life.

Contrary to a lot of the other reviewers on this site More...

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