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Mar 06, 2011

Lauren rated it:

I received this book through Goodreads First Read contest. Thankfully I didn't spend any money on it! I have to be honest and say that I was pretty disappointed in this book. It was hard to believe the same author that wrote my beloved “The Memory Keeper’s Daughter” wrote this…this…boring crap of a book. Well, maybe the word “crap” is a little harsh. The book did get a lot of good reviews so it could just be me and my crazy opinions. I just could NOT get into the story at all. I found myself pra More...

5 comments like (19 people liked it)

Mar 25, 2011

Johanna rated it:

I love Ms. Edwards lyrical and descriptive language. Every scene is brilliantly painted. Her story was riveting - flowing between past and present with complete ease. I was probably most intrigued by the discovery of old letters and the main character's (Lucy's) journey to decipher the author's (fascinating) story.

But this book has so many components beyond that. There is the veil of mystery surrounding Lucy's father's death, her residual feelings for her first love, her feeling for More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Feb 10, 2011

Jennifer rated it:

The Good Stuff

Wonderful realistic characters
Author really understands the inner workings of a family and its dynamics
I really understood Lucy's need to understand about her family history
Fascinating information and history and the portrayal of women in organized religion
Loved the character of the priest Suzi and her conversations with Keegan. If she was real, I would actually go to church
I was totally engrossed in the mystery of Rose and Iris and I thin More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Feb 19, 2011

Lormac rated it:

This book is awful. Let me count the ways...
I hate books where the characters act nothing like real people, and this book is a prime example of that failing. If you lived away from home for five + years and returned for an extended visit, and immediately pissed off your brother (who never left, by the way) by telling your mother that his girlfriend was pregnant after he specifically asked you not to do so, would you call him at 1:00 am when you knew he was sleeping next to the prgenant g More...

19 comments like (24 people liked it)

Jan 20, 2011

Cheri rated it:

oH, WHAT A BOOK!!!! I realized finally that I couldn't get into the book iniitially because I was trying to read in the hospital as my husaband was having surgery. Not the best place to begin a book. Finally, however, I was able to concentrate. So glad that I was.....the characters in this book are people I would want to meet.....people with whom I would want to spend time.

5 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 29, 2011

Rebecca rated it:

I had a serious love-hate relationship with this book. I loved the family-history part of the story, both the suffragette's actual story, and how the protagonist traces this forgotten branch of the family through historical archives (what can I say? That sort of thing is crack to a librarian). I also loved the colorful settings and activities the author used and described.

I hated the protagonist, though. Her arrogance, self-centeredness, and sense of entitlement beggared belief for a More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jul 28, 2011

Michele rated it:

I really enjoyed Kim Edward’s first novel – The Memory Keeper’s Daughter – and as with so many second novels I did have high expectations for her latest title – The Lake of Dreams. Unfortunately, some authors have missed the mark with their second. But I thought, with such a lovely title, cover and a storyline that piqued my interest – I was eager to give this story a go and well...I was pleasantly surprise.

The Lake of Dreams is a beautifully written, thought-provoking, lusciously desc More...

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May 27, 2011

Jim rated it:

When I sit down with a new book and think for a moment of the characters and settings and plots that I hope to soon encounter, I wonder how close the book will be to some unquantifiable ideal that I have. And after two DNFs in a row, I was beginning to worry. And then I cracked open this one, and this is the sort of book that I wish every book could be. The characters are terrific and have just enough in the way of flaws, but the novel is not entirely character-driven; there is actually a decent More...

1 comment like

May 24, 2011

Susanhayeshotmail.com rated it:

Apparently I had The Memory Keeper's Daughter confused with a book I liked better because I remember being quite happy to get my hands on The Lake of Dreams because it was by the same author. I didn't hate it and I did finish it but I was not completely captivated. Actually, I was kind of captivated by the main character's genealogical sleuthing and her family's past but something, or some things, just annoyed me. As in Memory Keeper's I just never really felt engaged with any of the characte More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 17, 2011

Chiemi rated it:

To be honest, I didn't finish the book, but in all fairness I wanted to quit about five pages in and gave it my best effort. 200 pages later, I finally succumbed to rational thought and replaced this time-suck with something else. I've read The Memory Keeper's Daughter and The Secrets of the Fireking, both of which I remember being interesting and well-told. So much so in fact that I have been eagerly awaiting Kim Edward's newest book for two years. Two years, I have searched the Fiction she More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 01, 2011

Kathleen rated it:

I found Kim Edwards’ latest novel far more compelling than "The Memory Keeper’s Daughter." Spanning one hundred years and three continents, Edwards skillfully weaves the themes and stories of women suffragettes, class, relationships, art and the environment as the background and context of the novel. At the same time she presents her characters wrestling with the demands of their contemporary lives, most of whom have little or no interest in their history, which ultimately becomes a More...

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Apr 26, 2011

Kathleen added it

The Lake of Dreams, by Kim Edwards, Narrated by Ann Marie Lee, Produced by Penguin Audio Books, downloaded from audible.com.

At a crossroads in her life, Lucy Jarrett returns home from Japan because her mother has broken her wrist. Lucy has not been home for several years and continues to be haunted by the events surrounding her father’s death, which occurred after her highschool graduation-events which she never clearly understood. Lucy finds that things have changed in the years s More...

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Apr 04, 2011

Tamela rated it:

I really wanted to like this book because I enjoyed "The Memory Keeper's Daughter," but, alas, it was not to be. The writing was heavy-handed, the plot--not terribly compelling to begin with--plodded, and the characters were so numerous they became one-dimensional in order to cram them all into the story. I wish the author had spent more time making the historical events come to life and less time waxing rhapsodic about the stillness of the night air and the ripples on the lake water More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 28, 2011

Christine rated it:

The first review I read of this book didn't like it; it wasn't as good as "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" and the plot developments could be seen coming a mile away. However, I found that NOT to be the case at all, and I really enjoyed this! The "heroine" returns from Japan to her beach-front home after her mother has experiened a fall. While there, she runs into her high school sweetheart who now is running a stained glass-works in town. A mystery develops as Mom and daug More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 01, 2011

Terri rated it:

I am also listening to the audiobook of Kim Edwards’ The Lake of Dreams. I am not quite through with the book. It is long, but it is also emotionally intense. There are books that I just can’t put down, but there are also books that become almost emotionally painful that require me to stop occasionally because reading or listening is too intense and I need a break. This is one of those. I had the same reaction to her previous novel, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter. (If you’ve seen the movie, but no More...

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Feb 26, 2011

Toni rated it:

This book held my interest. It does try to cover a multitude of ideas-families, siblings, women's suffragette,the Vietnam War, stained glass manufacturing and history, American Indian rights, ecology and women's place in religion.Basically, it works,but perhaps there were just a few too many points that the author was trying to make. The story of Rose was my favorite part and what kept me reading. Lucy 's story bothered me a little- I empathized with her feelings of loss and guilt at the death o More...

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Feb 22, 2011

Rosanne rated it:

I was greatly disappointed in The Lake of Dreams by Kim Edwards. I was hoping for a story like her first novel, "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" but unfortunately that is not what I got.

Lucy Jarrett is living in Japan with her boyfriend Yoshi and things aren't going well. She is unsettled and has a need to return home to the US and visit her family in a town in upstate NY. She hasn't been back since the untimely and questionable death of her father. Once she returns she is More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 19, 2011

Diane rated it:

The Lake of Dreams is the much anticipated second novel by Kim Edwards, author of New York Times bestseller, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter. Like her first novel, The Lake of Dreams also deals with secrets and hidden memories, and their effect on the people who hold them and bury them. In this book, Lucy Jarrett leaves her childhood home in New York soon after her father dies in an apparent boating accident and is mostly absent for the next ten years, as she moves from country to country and fro More...

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Jan 18, 2011

Carolyn rated it:

This is a lovely book that treats the past as more than memory, but as a deep current that tugs at the lives of its present day characters, even though they are unaware of its secrets. The Lake of Dreams is a (fictional) place in the finger lakes district of New York where the main character Lucy Jarrett was raised and where her family's roots are since the time her great grandfather emigrated there and established the family lock business. Lucy grew up on the shores of the beautiful deep cold More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 17, 2011

Amy rated it:

The moment I finished The Memory Keeper’s Daughter I though “I must read everything this women writes!” and thus began the long wait for her next novel. The Lake of Dreams was well worth the wait! Edwards has once again created characters that are so life like and realistic, their reactions and motivations so believable that the reader becomes emotionally invested in the novel. Unemployed, living in Japan with boyfriend in a relationship that is beginning to show signs of wear, Lucy Jarrett is More...

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Jan 11, 2011

Jackie rated it:

I wish I had liked this book better. It held some promise, at the beginning. But finally, after having persevered and doggedly pursued the end, I mostly just felt let down.

I didn't read The Memory Keeper's Daughter - I kept picking it up, and thinking, maybe, but then putting it back on the shelf at the library. And I almost wish I had done that with this book. It has received mostly good reviews. But.....

1. This story seems like one I've read a million times before. N More...

1 comment like (8 people liked it)

Jan 04, 2011

Diane rated it:

I was anxious to read Kim Edward's latest release after having enjoyed her debut novel The Memory Keeper's Daughter, some five years earlier. In her latest novel, Lucy Jarrett, the novel's protagonist, had been living in Japan with her boyfriend Yoshi, an architect. Some ten years earlier, the summer before Lucy was leaving for college, her father had drowned in a boating accident back home in Lake of Dreams, New York. Lucy has blamed herself from time to time for her father's death, because More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 16, 2011

Kay rated it:

Unlike everyone else on Goodreads, I didn't read the Memory Keeper's Daughter so I had no particular expectations. In fairness, I would probably give this a 3.5. The mystery in the narrator's past is awfully confusing until I found the family tree at the very end of the book--it involves one of those families where all the firstborn sons share the SAME name for 4 generations, argh! Why do authors do this?
Leaving that aside, I found the thread involving a fictional Art Nouveau stained gla More...

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Apr 20, 2011

Audrey rated it:

What a special book this is! I was enthralled and couldn't wait to get to the conclusion.Lucy Jarrett comes home to be with her Mom who has been hurt in an accident and finds many changes.She plans to spend this time deciding on her future plans only to be drawn into a fight over land.Groups wanting to save the environment,home of the white deer are fighting a development planned by her uncle.She and her brother are on opposite sides with her mother undecided about the sale of her home that is More...

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Oct 29, 2011

Gillian rated it:

“It took me back to a night when I was seventeen, wild and restless, sliding off the back of Keegan Fall’s motorcycle, apple blossoms as pale as stars above us.”
This sentence from chapter one contains everything I liked and disliked about Kim Edward’s The Lake of Dreams. The imagery of a spring night, white apple blossoms reflecting moonlight, restless youth, all that riding on the back of a motorcycle brings to mind, is an example of Edward’s beautiful use of language, but I stumbled on K More...

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Jun 29, 2011

Annette rated it:

i had read "the memory keeper's daughter" by kim edwards before. it was ok. not my favorite book. i guess something about the book jacket description of this book made we want to give it a try because i wouldn't have picked it on the tails of the other book i'd read by this author. this book turned out to be nothing like "the memory keeper's daughter" & i was glad of that.

i really enjoyed this book! i would recommend it to a friend (& already have!).

More...

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Dec 31, 2011

Melinda rated it:

This book was pretty dull. I should have learnt by now that authors like this churn out a bestseller then they get lazy. You can't argue that "the memory keepers daughter" was anything other than flaw free, but that doesn't mean you can just chuck out something this dull and get away with it.

The essential plot of the novel - discovering new and intriguing information about your long lost relatives was a good premise. It's execution was so far off that I think that walking do More...

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Jan 09, 2012

Larry rated it:

Lucy Jarrett has always had a hard time staying in one place. Fleeing her upstate New York hometown, Lake of Dreams, to go to college right after her father's tragic accidental death, she has drifted from job to job, place to place, relationship to relationship. Living in Japan with her boyfriend, Yoshi, she starts feeling the same pangs of longing and dissatisfaction, so she jumps at the chance to return home and visit her family after her mother is in a minor car accident. But returning home, More...

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May 01, 2011

Jen C (ReadinginWBL) rated it:

I chose to read this Lake of Dreams, because of my love of Edward’s first book, Memory Keeper’s Daughter. I found the writing to be very descriptive, which I really liked about this book. The elements of nature within the book were very vivid in my mind. I could feel the awe is spotting the white deer. I felt the characters were well developed. I liked the character of Lucy Jarrett, but did find her a bit self absorbed and driven. I think my favorite character is Rose Jarrett, who you onl More...

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Oct 23, 2011

Blair rated it:

The Lake of Dreams is about, and narrated by, 29-year-old Lucy Jarrett. After the trauma of losing her father, who drowned when she was a teenager, Lucy left her hometown behind to go to university and travel the world. At the start of the book, news of her mother suffering an accident prompts her to leave the home she shares in Japan with her boyfriend, Yoshi, and return to her family in America. There, she discovers a package of old pamphlets and letters hidden beneath a window seat. These con More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)