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147th out of 231 books
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554 voters
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Mistik Lake
Seventeen-year-old Odella is haunted by family secrets. Why doesn't her great-aunt Gloria visit anymore? Why does her mother, Sally, drink so much? Sally's tragic car accident on a frozen lake when she was sixteen seems to have cast a spell over her life that no one can break. Odella tries to hold her family together, but when her mother runs off, the family is left reelin...more
Hardcover, 224 pages
Published
August 21st 2007
by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
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Story Description:
Sixteen-year-old Sally is the only survivor when a car full of teenagers plunges through the ice to the bottom of Mistik Lake. Many years later, Sally’s daughter Odella is left wondering whether the accident is to blame for her mother’s life as a sad alcoholic who eventually abandons her family and flees to Iceland with another man. Odella, her father and two younger sisters are almost overwhelmed with grief and confusion until three people provide help and healing ...more
Sixteen-year-old Sally is the only survivor when a car full of teenagers plunges through the ice to the bottom of Mistik Lake. Many years later, Sally’s daughter Odella is left wondering whether the accident is to blame for her mother’s life as a sad alcoholic who eventually abandons her family and flees to Iceland with another man. Odella, her father and two younger sisters are almost overwhelmed with grief and confusion until three people provide help and healing ...more
I didn't like this book at all, which is odd because I like family secrets. In fact, my family has loads of them. Yet, let's be honest, with a book title that spells the word mystic with a k and an extra i, what had I truly expected?
The characters were ridiculous. The younger characters were either way too stupid for their age or entirely too intelligent for their age. None of them felt real. Even their flaws seemed transparent and did not pull at any emotion in me whatsoever. The on...more
The characters were ridiculous. The younger characters were either way too stupid for their age or entirely too intelligent for their age. None of them felt real. Even their flaws seemed transparent and did not pull at any emotion in me whatsoever. The on...more
When I scan the audio book shelves at the library, I usually look for something I'd heard of one way or another (either from seeing it in a bookstore, recommended by a friend, or having read a review of it by a blogger.) I'd never heard of "Mistik Lake," but something about it caught my eye and I checked it out.
I'm glad I did. Only four discs long, and there was a lot of story jammed in here. Only it didn't feel jammed at all. The writing flowed in and out, beautiful and hi...more
I'm glad I did. Only four discs long, and there was a lot of story jammed in here. Only it didn't feel jammed at all. The writing flowed in and out, beautiful and hi...more
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Heidi
rated it
I didn't like this book for a number of reasons. Three stand out the most. One, it very much clashes with my own standards and values and I don't really enjoy books like that. But that's me and I wouldn't turn readers away from that because of my own personal preferences. Two, I am still trying to get if there was a point to the book. I'll blame myself for that one, too. Three, the way the book was written confused me. I think listening to it on audio added to the confusion. It took me a while t...more
Later in bed, as all of this sink in, I concentrated on convincing myself that maybe it's kind of like having a tooth pulled. Afterwards, there's a space that you're aware of for a while. Your tongue goes to it every morning when you are waking up - exploring where the tooth was, the little injured place where the gum is still red, pulpy and tender. Then one morning you wake up and you forget to check for the missing tooth.
It's, however, so much worse than that!
Those were Odell...more
It's, however, so much worse than that!
Those were Odell...more
The audio version of this was recommended by a friend, and I was enjoying it so much that I pulled the book off the shelf to finish it.
This a young adult novel focusing on the family secrets of 17-year-old Odella. Mistik Lake is where her mother grew up and where her family has a summer cabin. This is a novel of family secrets, sisterhood and falling in love. It’s a typical YA problem novel, and packs in pretty much every issue imaginable, but it’s handled well and is believable. The...more
This a young adult novel focusing on the family secrets of 17-year-old Odella. Mistik Lake is where her mother grew up and where her family has a summer cabin. This is a novel of family secrets, sisterhood and falling in love. It’s a typical YA problem novel, and packs in pretty much every issue imaginable, but it’s handled well and is believable. The...more
The book "Mistik Lake", is a realistic fiction narrative by Martha Brooks. In the story, the main character's (Odella McLean) mother, Sally, moves to Iceland, leaving her three daughters with their father at Mistik Lake. A few years later, however, she passes away, which greatly changes Odella and her family. She eventually discovers secrets about her family which her mother never told her.
An interesting aspect of this book is the fact that it follows the events in t...more
An interesting aspect of this book is the fact that it follows the events in t...more
HOLY COW! This is an incredibly written book! I'm so glad my daughter pulled it off the shelf. I would have never picked it out on my own.
Odella is a 17 year-old girl who has lost her mother in many ways. She is a strong intelligent girl, who is beyond her years more than is fair. When the loss of her mother starts an unraveling of secrets she's really just along for the ride. Luckily she has the support of Jimmy, a boy of whom is connected to her family from past generations and who ...more
Odella is a 17 year-old girl who has lost her mother in many ways. She is a strong intelligent girl, who is beyond her years more than is fair. When the loss of her mother starts an unraveling of secrets she's really just along for the ride. Luckily she has the support of Jimmy, a boy of whom is connected to her family from past generations and who ...more
Reviewed by JodiG. for TeensReadToo.com
For some people, the times in their lives in which everything finally comes together are the same times that everything falls apart.
Meet Odella, a teenage girl whose family is drowning in secrets. Odella and her two sisters are adjusting to the fact that their mother has abandoned them to move to Iceland with another man. Now they are faced with their mother's death. Odella must now deal with questions about her mother that may rema...more
For some people, the times in their lives in which everything finally comes together are the same times that everything falls apart.
Meet Odella, a teenage girl whose family is drowning in secrets. Odella and her two sisters are adjusting to the fact that their mother has abandoned them to move to Iceland with another man. Now they are faced with their mother's death. Odella must now deal with questions about her mother that may rema...more
Pauline
rated it
"Mistik Lake" by Martha Brooks won the Canadian Library Association Young Adult Award and being a Canadian book I knew in advance that the book would be liberal in its ideas and themes and I was correct.
"Mistik Lake" contains an array of small town characters whose lives are all intertwined. There is the lesbian Aunt Gloria, the schizophrenic mother, the runaway mother who has children from three different partners, the architect father and the teenage daughter w...more
"Mistik Lake" contains an array of small town characters whose lives are all intertwined. There is the lesbian Aunt Gloria, the schizophrenic mother, the runaway mother who has children from three different partners, the architect father and the teenage daughter w...more
In 1943, Gloria fell in love with a girl.
In 1981, her niece Sally and some other high school kids were driving on frozen Mistik Lake and it went through the ice. Sally was the only survivor.
In 2000, Sally runs off with an icelandic filmmaker, and her oldest daughter Odella has to pick up the pieces. The secrets and lost loves of the past reverberate through the story, but this is really Odella’s story - as she falls apart, picks herself up, falls in love.
As I...more
In 1981, her niece Sally and some other high school kids were driving on frozen Mistik Lake and it went through the ice. Sally was the only survivor.
In 2000, Sally runs off with an icelandic filmmaker, and her oldest daughter Odella has to pick up the pieces. The secrets and lost loves of the past reverberate through the story, but this is really Odella’s story - as she falls apart, picks herself up, falls in love.
As I...more
Mistik Lake is told in alternating chapters from the point of view of three characters: Odella, the primary narrator, whose story is the one told in the first person, her Great-Aunt Gloria, and Jimmy Tomasson, a young man Odell's age. But the character who is at the center of the web of stories is a woman long known to all of Mistik Lake: Odella's mother, Sally McLean. [return][return]"On a stone-cold night in 1981 a carload of teenagers went joyriding out on frozen Mistik Lake. The car car...more
Mistik Lake is a tiny town in Manitoba. Three generations of women have spent significant parts of their lives there: Gloria, her niece Sally, and Sally’s daughter Odella. Although Mistik Lake is a beautiful place, it is also home to heartbreak and tragedy. When she was fifteen, Sally was the only survivor of an accident in which three other local teenagers were killed. The accident – and the part that Sally played in it – affected her entire life. The reader sees these effects in the stor...more
How much trouble can one girl get into? I thought I was bad, but at least I'm not sneaking guys up into my room every night. Mistik Lake did have a good idea, though some more foreshadowing would be nice. At times I was confused on who was actually talking. I know I know, not everything has to be labeled... but does everyone have to sound the same? No book is perfect, and evidently, this family is nowhere near being perfect. At least it was an interesting read...
I loved this book! I like books that have multiple points of view and this one was done very nicely. The story was told from the point of view of a teenage girl, her teenage boyfriend, and the girls' great aunt who was around for all the hell that the family went through. The plot was a little too full of twists and turns, but subplots were good and followed up nicely. I may look into her other novels in the future.
The characters in this book deal with some pretty tough stuff - mostly to do with family secrets. The story is told through the perspectives of three characters. I was most interested in the context - people of Icelandic descent living near Winnepeg. To me, the twists weren't very surprising, but I think that made it more realistic. To me, Jimmy was a bit too ideal. But I enjoyed reading it. It's a handseller - not a booktalk.
Odella’s mother had been involved in an accident one winter on Mistik Lake and three teenagers had died when a car plunged through the ice. Her mother escaped but the ramifications of that event have haunted her mother’s and now her own life. When her mother dies all the parts of her family come together to reveal the truth of their lives.
I felt like a voyeur reading the stories of Odella, Jimmy, and Gloria in Mistik Lake. Especially Aunt Gloria's, because I felt that her story could have remained secret.
Martha Brooks did a masterful job of slowly and with impeccable timing, unfolding all the secrets that shape Odella's life, and though not all of them are shocking, some are surprising
Martha Brooks did a masterful job of slowly and with impeccable timing, unfolding all the secrets that shape Odella's life, and though not all of them are shocking, some are surprising
Jess
rated it
Recommends it for:
people who want thoughtful stories about high-schoolers
Shelves:
young-adult
This came recommended, but I was never really sold on it. The writing was evocative and the characters and setting had potential, but the whole shebang never really came alive for me. There were too many jolts back and forward in time, shifts which would have been intriguing with a longer, more in-depth story. It reminded me of The Red Shoe, both in the way I wanted to really like it, but didn't quite, and in the way the relationships between sisters were treated. Both books invoked certain ...more
This book was amazing... at first it was kinda hard for me to understand but then once i started to read it , i couldnt put the book down. This has to be one of the best books ever that i have read. You guys shouldd readd itt :)
I listened to this on audio. It was a an interesting story about Odella and the secrets that her mother and great-aunt kept from her. It is told through each of their perspectives, at times. Interesting, but I was never very engaged in it.
overall i loved this book i thought it was amazing and i though the story line was great. as well as very clear and its a real page turner i recommend that everyone read this book if your looking for something interesting.
Two stars seems like a very low rating for a book that had really lovely prose and a strong sense of place and at least one character (Aunt Gloria) who was really interesting and compelling. But the rest of the characters seemed cliched to me and the story telling was haphazard and some of the themes were problematic I thought (I enjoy a good love story but I'm not OK with a girl working out her issues/validating her worth through a young, idealized romance).
Jianny
added it
I recommend this book because it is scary, it speaks about families, secrets, and all my favortie topics! Have a chance to read this book! Its worth reading it!
BBYA * 2008 Outstanding International Books * CLA YA Book of the Year
Odella was only 17 – she was *not* prepared when her mother left her, her sisters, and their father in Manitoba and moved to Iceland with another man. It seemed like Odella’s whole life her mother had been haunted by a car accident that happened when she had been a teenager on Mistik Lake, leaving her the sole survivor in a carload of teenagers. But her mother’s abandonment is only the start of the family’s journey, leav...more
Odella was only 17 – she was *not* prepared when her mother left her, her sisters, and their father in Manitoba and moved to Iceland with another man. It seemed like Odella’s whole life her mother had been haunted by a car accident that happened when she had been a teenager on Mistik Lake, leaving her the sole survivor in a carload of teenagers. But her mother’s abandonment is only the start of the family’s journey, leav...more
Good characters and use of multiple points of view. Shows how relationships suffer under the pressure of secrets and guilt.
This read more as an adult book. Odella is 17 and is trying to understand her family's past and her present life.
Multi-layered story about a 17y.o. girl unraveling secrets of her mother's past. Secret #1 I figured out about 2 chapters in advance. Secret #2 I didn't even suspect. As for the secret of the accident after which Sally (Odella's mother) was the lone survivor, that didn't surprise me so much; the truth helped Odella understand her mother's drinking, depression, and nightmares, but it did not change my perception of Sally. I liked the dad in this story. In the beginning I wondered if he would be e...more
More like a 3.5 because it took me awhile to get into it but I really liked the way this ended.
OMG this book is the best book: it has romance, lots of emotion, and some humor.
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Critically acclaimed playwright, novelist and short fiction writer Martha Brooks was born and raised in a medical family on the grounds of the now defunct Manitoba Sanatorium at Ninette, Manitoba and resides with her husband, Brian, in Winnipeg.
She has penned award-winning short stories and several powerful novels for young readers, as well as several plays, all of which deal with the ...more
More about Martha Brooks...
She has penned award-winning short stories and several powerful novels for young readers, as well as several plays, all of which deal with the ...more
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