The Lake of Dead Languages

by Carol Goodman

In the evocative tradition of Donna Tartt’s first novel, The Secret History , comes this accomplished debut of youthful innocence drowned by dark sins. Twenty years ago, Jane Hudson left the Heart Lake School for Girls in the Adirondacks after a terrible tragedy. Now she has returned to the placid, isolated shores of the lakeside school as a Latin teacher, recently separated and hoping to make a fresh start with her young daughter. But ominous messages from the past dredge up forgotten memories that will become a living nightmare.

Since freshmen year, Jane and her two roommates, Lucy Toller and Deirdre Hall, were inseparable–studying the classics, performing school girl rituals on the lake, and sneaking out after curfew to meet Lucy’s charismatic brother Matt. However, the last winter before graduation, everything changed. For in that sheltered, ice-encrusted wonderland, three lives were taken, all victims of senseless suicide. Only Jane was left to carry the burden of a mystery that has stayed hidden for more than two decades in the dark depths of Heart Lake.

Now pages from Jane’s missing journal, written during that tragic time, have reappeared, revealing shocking, long-buried secrets. And suddenly, young, troubled girls are beginning to die again . . . as piece by piece the shattering truth slowly floats to the surface.

At once compelling, sensuous, and intelligent, The Lake of Dead Languages is an eloquent thriller, an intricate balance of suspense and fine storytelling that proves Carol Goodman is a rare new talent with a brilliant future.

Genres: Dark Academia, Mystery, Fiction, Thriller, Mystery Thriller, Gothic, Contemporary

390 pages, Hardcover

First published January 2, 2002

About the author

Carol Goodman is the author of The Lake of Dead Languages, The Seduction of Water, which won the Hammett Prize, The Widow's House, which won the Mary Higgins Clark Award and The Night Visitors, which won the Mary Higgins Clark Award. She is also the co-author, with her husband Lee Slonimsky, of the Watchtower fantasy trilogy. Her work has appeared in such journals as The Greensboro Review, Literal Latte, The Midwest Quarterly, and Other Voices. After graduation from Vassar College, where she majored in Latin, she taught Latin for several years in Austin, Texas. She then received an M.F.A. in fiction from the New School University. Goodman currently teaches literature and writing at The New School and SUNY New Paltz and lives with her family in the Hudson Valley.

Reviews

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

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 seems to be recreating this past aggressively and accusatorily (I may have made this word up; if not, I spelled it wrong). This novel was like an overstuffed sandwich with too many unnecessary details, yet somehow lacking some essential flavor. The protagonist is either really dumb or really in denial about some of the elements of her history, even though she knows more about the actual cases than anyone else. Often the emotions just did not ring true. Plus, how many times does the protagonist almost fall through the ice? It seems to happen on every other page. The author is not very clear about certain details and it becomes hard to visualize; this includes the recurring symbol created out of hairpins that the girls use to leave each other messages. I just could not picture it despite the description. Other times description was flat-out missing and I had no idea what she was talking about. It is incredibly obvious who the person in the present messing with the protagonist is. Then the whole preposterous story wraps up neatly with -- spoiler alert -- yet ANOTHER kid turning out to have been the illegitimate child of the secretly adoptive mother's friend. God. What a mess. Bonus ick: rapey sex with masked stranger.

Pros: I learned enough about Latin to want to go buy Wheelock's Latin and learn more. I also learned about how bodies of water freeze. However, these things did not make the book worth recommending.

[Madeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

A modern Gothic mystery - reminds me of The Secret History.
(well, technically, I read this one first, so I should say The Secret History reminded me of this book. But same difference.) Bottom line: both are incredibly creepy and really good reads.

UPDATE, TEN (holy shit) YEARS LATER AFTER I RE-READ THIS ON A WHIM:

(Wow, it's amazing to go back to Teenage Madeline's reviews and see how short and boring they all are.)

As my original review states, I read this before Donna Tartt's novel, but I'm pretty sure that reading the latter book, and the similarities I noticed, were what prompted me to review Carol Goodman's book way back in 2009. This was long before I knew to be extremely cautious of any book claiming any relation to The Secret History, and If I’d been presented with The Lake of Dead Languages today, I’m not sure if I’d even have bothered to pick it up. By now, I know that any book advertising itself as a worthy successor to The Secret History is most likely overestimating itself, if not flat-out lying, and I usually steer clear.

But I remember being thrilled by The Lake of Dead Languages back when I read it as a teenager, so I impulsively checked out the audiobook version one day to see if it held up.

Short answer: no, not really. Obviously Carol Goodman's book cannot hold a candle to Tartt’s, which was clever and intricate and gripping (although now, having read it several times, I’m willing to admit that The Secret History loses a lot of its momentum after Bunny’s funeral, but that is the only fault we acknowledge in this house). Goodman is trying so hard to replicate the atmosphere and plot of The Secret History, and she’s only halfway succeeding.

Exactly like The Secret History, The Lake of Dead Languages involves an adult looking back at her time in private school (this time, it’s high school), the small, tight-knit group of friends they had during that time, and a traumatic event that the narrator has tried to keep secret. In this case, our unreliable narrator is Jane, who has returned to the Heart Lake School for Girls as a Latin teacher. She sees herself and her former friends reflected in the teenage girls she now teaches, and then things start to get weird: she receives mysterious notes alluding to something that happened while she was a student, and then events from her past seemingly start to repeat themselves. Jane has to figure out who is dredging up her secrets, and what they want from her, before someone dies.

So obviously it’s all very dramatic and just on the safe side of Gothic – and, just like its predecessor, involves a bunch of students trying to recreate an ancient pagan ritual, with deadly consequences. But unlike The Secret History, Goodman's book culminates in a melodramatic and over-the-top action sequence, the kind you see in cheesy movies where our unassuming hero suddenly acquires action-star abilities. It’s absurd and so, so stupid, but at least it’s exciting and fun.

The Lake of Dead Languages fails because of its protagonist. Donna Tartt understood that Richard Papen was an unreliable narrator and an immoral person, and more importantly, Richard Papen understood this about himself. Jane Hudson believes herself to be the heroine of her story, even though most of the book is her presenting her version of events and then desperately and unconvincingly trying to explain why she was in the right. Basically the book is one long litany of Jane going “this is what happened and why I had to do what I did” and the reader realizing that neither of those statements are true but having to go along with it anyway, because Carol Goodman remains convinced that her protagonist was merely a victim of circumstances. Even though she teases us with the moral ambiguity of Jane's actions and choices, that all goes out the window at the climax when she reveals that the person behind all of the attacks at the school is absolutely batshit crazy, and therefore the true villain of everything that’s happened so far. Jane is let completely off the hook so we can blame the crazy person, and it’s disappointing.

Long story short: The Lake of Dead Languages is exciting and melodramatic, but at the end of the day, it’s margarine and The Secret History is butter. Or whatever metaphor you prefer. Actually, I can just sum up my experience re-reading this book like this (apologies to The Good Place):*

Carol Goodman: Good news! I was able to obtain a novel similar to The Secret History!
Me: (sighing) Is is actually a book where someone just gets murdered at a private school?
Goodman: I don't understand.
Me: I want the new The Secret History. Is that what you have, or do you have a book where someone just gets murdered at a private school?
Goodman: I have the new The Secret History
Me: You're sure? You have the new The Secret History and not a book where someone just gets murdered at a private school?
Goodman: That is correct. I have the new The Secret History; I do not have a book where someone just gets murdered at a private school.
Me: Excellent, please give me the new The Secret History.
Goodman: Here you go. [hands me a book where someone just gets murdered at private school.
Me: ...thank you, Carol.
Goodman: You're welcome.

(if you don't watch The Good Place and need context, the scene I'm referencing starts at 1:18 in this video Also please watch The Good Place)

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh, wow...where to begin. There were elements of this book that I wanted to give 5 stars. The story, the plot, the intertwining of characters and their histories. A nice reveal at the end (although it was very predictable). The problem was the pacing. I felt like I was reading the book f...o...r...e...v...e...r. At one point I actually stared at the page number, 287, and could not believe there were STILL 100 more pages to go. Too much detail and description when it was way beyond the need for such. I could deal with the retelling of the story...it had kind-of a I'm going to tell-you-what-we-think-happened but now we are going to tell you what really happened.

If it had been a better edited and shortened book when you find out the big who-done-it it would have been okay but by that point you have been clobbered with excess that you already figured it out and can't figure out why the main character can't figure it out.

Also...the ice. And the freezing ice. And the snow and walking through the snow and the storms of snow. And the storms of snow and ice. And the frost. And the ice. And the frost and snow and ice and fog. And the rain. The rain that turns to ice. On top of snow that is covered in ice. That moans. And creaks. And growls. And cracks. And creaks while cracking and growling and moaning.

So...what should every character do at every turn? Why, let's walk on the ice...and snow...and rock...and ice...on the lake and on the trails...and on the new ice...and the old ice. And at the precipice of the ice and rock and snow and cliff in the middle of the night over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. It's like the movie Titanic...stop going to the bottom or the boat that has the same cold water on the outside of the boat where hypothermia sets in at about 2 minutes.

With that being said, I finished the book so I give it 3 stars because 2.5 isn't an option. (I'd give it 1 star for Jane's relationship with her daughter. As the parent of young children you would not just simply dismiss ***SPOILER: that you think somebody took your child out on a lake in a boat and deposited her on a rock!!!!!!!)

Oh snap...seems I have given this book more of my time.

[Olivia (Stories For Coffee) · Rating 4 out of 5]

For fans of dark academia, gothic tales. The Lake of Dead Languages spends takes its time exploring all-consuming, toxic friendships, a love for Latin and classic literature, the breathlessness of first love, the darkness of one’s past and how it may come to haunt you, and how one’s world can come crashing down when you place your universe into another’s hands.

[Ellie Hamilton · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75 The setting for this was my favourite part, the lake felt like a character and the nature writing was beautiful, however if this is a good thing to you or not and as I was in the mood for it it did overall feel a very easy read for me and despite it lacking in a twist that wasn't guessable and a guillable plot and main character there is just something about the dark academic thriller I just love 🤣

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars--I really liked it.

I adore this book for its setting (a girls' boarding school), its plot (full of gothic twists and turns), and its Classical and literary allusions (the deer imagery, the poetry scraps, etc.). All the Goodman books I've read have had school settings (reflecting her own experiences, I think), and they're always authentic and full of interest.

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

A '9 out of 10' book - it won't be added to my list of ultimate favourites, but it was the best thing I've read for a long time. I love stories of this ilk, and The Lake of Dead Languages has everything; flashbacks to the narrator's intriguing past, buried (or rather drowned) secrets refusing to stay that way, a boarding school housed in an old mansion, parallels with classical mythology, pagan rites and ice storms. I found Jane likeable from the start, and it was easy to sympathise with her as the other characters (in both the past and present narratives) weren't appealing at all. The only thing I struggled with was exactly why it was assumed Jane had something to do with Athena's suicide attempt at the beginning of the present-day narrative, but once this was out of the way the story flowed effortlessly, with the two plots working together seamlessly. I figured out some of the twists before they were revealed, but isn't part of the fun of a story like this working out what's happening to the characters before they realise it themselves? I didn't manage to guess the final twist, and I also thought the ending wrapped everything up perfectly, which is quite a rare thing. Quietly gripping, and full of suspense and atmosphere.

[Barbara · Rating 2 out of 5]

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 in the frozen lake. The three girls had an odd, close relationship with their Latin teacher, who left after the inquiry. And now Jane’s the Latin teacher and strange things are happening to several of the girls in her class. And it all ties into the school legend, about the deaths of founder’s daughters, and the three rocks in the lake named for the sisters, and how the lake draws in girls in threes…..

The stage was all set for a cozy gothic and although it’s not my favorite genre, I was in. And then, just as in the story, it all started sinking slowly, inexorably, downwards. The author used heavy foreshadowing, including parallels from the classic tragedies they’re reading in class, so there are great big arrows pointing to the ‘mysteries’ and who’s behind them. Then the story line drops into the past, and you are shown every single detail of what happened. And then, you’re back in the present, and the narrator goes back over it again, and realizes, oh, that means… Yes dear, we were there 100 pages ago.

Whenever necessary to make things Absolutely Clear, the protagonist recalls exact dialogue from earlier in the story. “You won’t let me fall in, will you Jane?” The redundancy of the plot reminded me of the tendency in Hollywood thrillers to sum up all the ‘twists’ - Just in Case the People in the Back Row Didn’t Get It. There were several points I was tempted to throw the book across the room.

It seemed to me not entirely the author’s fault - this book appeared really very badly under-edited. I could possibly accept the overly heavy imagery was intentional. Ice in the river, the frozen lake, paths in the snow, the colors black, white, and red, sweating in the snow, the steam heat in the dormitory, people turning pale or blushing. Enough, please.

But there were also many examples where the same text, or a close variation, appears at multiple points in the story. For example, the explanation of how a lake freezes (from the surface down) was repeated three times. I’ve heard rumors but didn’t believe it - have publishers really gotten rid of all their editors?

The first third of the book had been good enough that I slogged through the frustrating remainder, while at the same time I berated myself for wasting time. If it were radically edited to half the current length it would be taut gothic suspense. With all the extra words, it’s frustrating and trite.

[Chloe (thelastcolour) · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Spirit of the Lake, we come here in the spirit of friendship. We don’t ask for special protection”...”All we ask is that whatever happens to one of us, let happen to all of us.”

Many times, whilst reading this book, I had to place ‘The Lake of Dead Languages’ down in front of me and just stare into the distance. It was eerie and gritty and raw and the characters felt so vivid and real. This book was set at an all girls boarding school called ‘Heart Lake.’ This is a school that was built beside a huge lake, Heart Lake, after which the school was named. This lake holds many legends, legends that are whispered in the darkness, uttered in the dead of night during Halloween or when huddled around a campfire. These legends haunt the girls who attend this school and, even though, they have been deemed incorrect, it doesn’t take away the fear stored in the students hearts.

‘The Lake of Dead Languages,’ is told from the perspective of Jane Hudson, a single mother and Latin teacher at Heart Lake. But she is also what they call an ‘old girl,’ meaning that she was once a student at this boarding school. She won a scholarship that she fought hard to win. Jane has witnessed many horrors in her past, the majority of them at Heart Lake, and these horrors begin to resurface when she sets foot on the school grounds once again.

This is a book of fierce friendships, friends that you would do anything for. It is mysterious and creepy and drenched in suspense. There are many twists and turns and surprises, as if you, yourself, were meandering through woods thick with pine trees and shadows. It is a gothic tale, one that will haunt you long after the last page has been turned. The characters are primarily female, although there are a couple of minor male characters. There are also allusions to Greek and Roman mythology/literature, especially some Greek tragedies and Virgil’s ‘The Aeneid.’

‘The Lake of Dead Languages,’ is fists shoved into coat pockets, hands red raw from the blistering cold and cheeks flushed from the vicious winds. It’s moaning lakes buckling under the intensity of the ice. It’s creaking wood and electrical storms and whispering trees. It’s the world enshrouded with fog, shadows flickering out the corner of your eye, the feeling of always being watched. It’s ancient rituals and sacrifices to goddesses and skinny dipping in the black waters at the break of dawn. It’s the silence, the lack of laughter and the fear that you’re next, that the legend has picked you as its next victim. It’s pens scratching across journals, conversations in Latin and ice skating in the middle of the night. It’s the feeling of never being good enough, always having the thirst to prove yourself, to try harder, run faster, scream louder. It’s floating white dresses, fluttering and ghost-like. It’s dancing around maypoles welcoming the sun as it awakes from its slumber. It’s the dead of night and wishing under a thousand stars, finding comfort amongst the skeletal trees that arch themselves towards the shimmering moonlight. It’s hope and fear and excitement all rolled into one.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first book I have read by this author, and I really enjoyed it. This book, overall, is well written with a descriptive, atmospheric prose and a touch of gothic undertones to make it just dark enough for me to love. Composed of secrets, lies, suicide, murder and revenge; Goodman brilliantly weaves layers into the plot that kept me engaged until the end. Looking forward to reading more from this author.

[Catalina · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Lake of Dead Languages:

This tragic story seemed like it would be straightforward on the theme of coming of age with Latin and Greek Mythology. A touch of Donna Tart and John Updike. Not a complete match hit but an atmospheric and overly dramatic take on tragedies.

This novel does bring to light the intricacies of friendships, control, manipulation, and sexual awakenings. Latin is a main focus and brings an authoritarian form of control with education.

I will admit this story bogged me down for a bit but in a good way. I thought that was the intention and felt like I should tread on? Some of the scenes seemed repetitive and contrived but provided some form of structure. It’s honestly an interesting book to analyze.

[Dardenitaaa · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 sounded extremely catchy, I’m pretty sure you’ll find lots to love in Carol Goodman’s Lake of Dead Languages—an almost mythological-esque thriller exploring the edges of adolescent woes and high-school horrors, richly glazed with controversial socio-feministic truths. Just a caveat though: plot became sort of predictable half-way through. Or maybe it’s my inner crankypants again. Goodman makes up for it though by ironing the creases out of her narrative with wonderfully, tragically wounded heroines and yes, even villains, too. Like standing on a glass floor of ice, there’s plenty amount of chills, fragility, nostalgia and clarity in these pages that will oh-so-easily propel you deeper towards its secrets and mysteries.

This is Heart Lake School for Girls. Come Hither.


I’ve always been vocal about my love of layers. This novel has gazillions of it, and yes, most of it were effectively and intricately plotted within an interchanging series of present-day musings and flashbacks. The focal point is the story’s heroine and narrator, Jane Hudson, an alumna who returns to Heart Lake to teach Latin to a class of girls with whom she sees and identifies similarities to herself and her best friends during their time. It’s a mirror of events and identities, tugging at each other; Repetitions almost blending as one, as if staged by someone who premeditatedly wants to torture her. And the sameness of the tragedies evokes a certain paranoia on Jane—who knew all too well the patterns and the first-hand details of what happened in the past.

In it there’s a central, recurring concept of salvaging wrong decisions made and finding truth in all the deceit and confusion blurred frozen by time. I like how bits and pieces of Jane’ high school diary became a device in giving glimpses of their past, particularly on the tragedies whose only remaining witness alive was her. Dun Dun Dun Dun.

It’s a page-turner, but I thought some of the major revelations weren’t as shriek-worthy as I wanted it to be, having seen a twist a couple of pages before it gets affirmed. Okay, so maybe I’m just too engrossed wanting to find out who’s the culprit behind everything that I immediately guessed who it was, but still. I love layers, but I’m very particular about execution too. It’s a little pointless dragging a time-bomb longer than it’s supposed to be, just saying.

Nevertheless, this book has a lot of good points that shouldn’t be overlooked. In all fairness, the themes incorporated here were all relatively heavy for a coming-of-age story and I thought it honestly captured all the pain and tragedies of high-school’s darker side. I especially adore how everyone in the class gets their own Latin Name according to preferences to ditch their boring, generic names. And since it was a Latin Class, I was able to pick up a couple of Latin words and phrases, Cor Te Reducit being my favourite. It means: The heart leads you back.

And like Heart Lake itself, the story delves deeper and murkier as you read on. Heart: it gets to the core of what happened to Jane to make sense of what’s haunting her in the present. It’s somewhat became the conflict with which she will come to peace with her guilt-imbued self. And secondly, Lake: because as you swim further you say farewell to the shores of safety too, for you to put your own bravery to test towards profound depths your feet won’t touch.

All in all, the Lake of Dead Languages has been a beautiful albeit scary memoir; It’s piercing and pensive in ways that will ironically make you miss the one phase of your life you’re grateful you’re done with—High School.

This book will make you remember how it’s not always sunlit and cheery, but will also tell you, as if in whisper: The heart will always, lead you back.

[Oroboros72 · Rating 2 out of 5]

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 slams you with the overly clueless main character saying "look! that symbol is here again!" or "look! I've figured something out" and then explains it in painful detail. The one thing that will really really make me love a book is if it leads me to think that I have figured out some hidden secret that it contains. Carol Goodman denies me that satisfaction by bashing me over the head with the answers.

I guess I read the other two books (The Seduction of Water, and The Drowning Tree) because I am so tempted by that symbolism. The ice churning in this book for example, what a great metaphor for the plot of a story, it's mixing and then the ultimate revealing of secrets as the ice floats to the top. But maybe that is what is so frustrating. all the components are there for a really beautiful and enticing story, but they are just so clumsily put together that I am left thoroughly disappointed.

[Renee · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 to what Andrews wrote (or what others wrote in her name), and it only took a little imagination to land on the right conclusions.

I do always like to see the approach authors take regarding the dynamic between women/girls, mentoring relationships, friendships, etc., and I really enjoyed this aspect of Goodman's novel. It was interesting to see her explore how friendships built during the torrid teen years are often built on little that is solid, and how the truth seeps slowly into one's initial perceptions of other people.

If you spent less time reading sordid, tangled tales when you were younger, I recommend this. If I had not guessed the plot twists I would be giving The Lake of Dead Languages more stars.

[Sara (Sbarbine_che_leggono) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meravigliose atmosfere dark academia, un college sulle rive di un lago ghiacciato del Vermont, una dichiarazione d’amore verso la cultura classica e una serie di misteriosi suicidi. L’ho amato e l’ho divorato.
Unico appunto: ho intuito chi era l’artefice del tutto a circa cento pagine dalla fine.

[Noella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Twintig jaar geleden vluchtte Jane Hudson na een verschrikkelijke tragedie van de Heart Lake School voor meisjes. Een week voor ze zou afstuderen kwamen twee meisjes in dat beschermde wereldje om het leven, alle twee door zelfmoord. Jane droeg als enige de last van een gruwelijk geheim dat tientallen jaren verborgen bleef in de diepte van Heart Lake.
Nu is Jane teruggekeerd naar de school als lerares Latijn. Ze is kortgeleden gescheiden en hoopt een nieuwe start te maken met haar dochtertje. Maar onheilspellende boodschappen uit het verleden zorgen ervoor dat vergeten herinneringen weer naar boven komen. Dan sterven er opnieuw jonge, angstige meisjes, en stukje bij beetje komt de verpletterende waarheid aan de oppervlakte.

Het verhaal wordt afwisselend in de tegenwoordige tijd en in het verleden verteld. Zo krijgen we een goed beeld van wat er vroeger gebeurd is, en wat de geheimen van de toenmalige meisjes waren, en zien we hoe bepaalde gebeurtenissen zich lijken te herhalen.

Ik vond dit boek wel goed, maar niet denderend. Je wil wel blijven verder lezen omdat je wil weten wat er nog allemaal te gebeuren staat. Dus toch wel bevredigende lectuur.

[Sierra Overby · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Like Donna Tartt’s The Secret History or a good film noir…[this book will] keep readers hooked.”
This quote sits loud and proud on the front cover of the book. Every time a book compares itself to the Secret History, I find myself obstinately cynical and mildly tempted to read it purely so I can prove myself right. This one having been written in the early 2000s (rather than being a pandemic cash grab during the online *dark academia* renaissance) made me a little more inclined to delay judgment though; the fact that I had never seen it mentioned on social media was the deciding factor in whether to invest the time.

the synopsis
Jane Hudson is a Latin teacher at a girls’ boarding school in the Adirondacks. The school has a rich, ominous legend that, although dubious, haunts the school and the behavior of the students. Twenty years ago, in the 1970s, Jane was a student at the same school, where both her roommates fell victim to the fate outlined in the legend, and died by suicide. After twenty years of moving through life with no closure and no agency, she winds up freshly divorced and looking for a new life with her young daughter, back at her old school. She begins getting haunting messages from her time as a student, and the legend begins its cycle again. Jumping between past and present, the reader slowly pulls the thread of what happened back then and how it connects to what’s happening now.

the good
I am not usually an easy fan of the two-timelines trope, but I thought it worked well here. It broke up the length of the story and kept the mystery engaging, and made the unraveling of events in the third act much more dramatic. The setting was fun, and the writing was atmospheric. Weather played a big part of the plot which for some reason I am always a fan of. I love an academic setting. I love spooky legends that manifest themselves into something real, living, and inescapable. And no matter how overdone it might be as of recent, classics studies pair deliciously with mystery and morbidity.

I really enjoyed the section of the book that took place in Jane’s past as a student. It felt like an accurate portrayal of what it’s like to be a teenage girl who isn’t anything special. As many pieces of “dark academia” fiction as I’ve consumed, I found it refreshing that this one was set in the 1970s. The time period wasn’t overly exploited in a way that felt gimicky, but a lot of the details nodded to the social climate of the time, which is pretty novel for the genre. In alignment with the theme of this era—which was certainly more colorful than the typical moody, dark setting of DA books set in the 90s—the author chose a very fitting, colorful pagan holiday as the pivotal rite, rather than a savage Greek or spooky occult ritual you would expect. Brilliant!

the not so good
I predicted literally every twist and every surprise that happened in the entire story. All of them. Maybe it’s because I’ve been reading mysteries since I could read, maybe it’s because I am older than the intended audience (I actually have no idea if this was meant to be YA or adult; the writing style feels like the former but the content suggests the latter); I think maybe these reasons are a little generous though. The author was very heavy handed in her foreshadowing which absolutely killed it for me. Every time I solved something too far in advance, I had no doubt I was right, and I was disappointed because I thought they would have been pretty good twists if she’d just let the reader come to them in due time instead of compulsively pointing hard in the direction of the surprise. Reading this felt like playing a game with a kid who can’t help but giggle and look directly at the place they hid the treasure.

While I really enjoyed reading from Jane’s point of view as a high school student, I found adult Jane to be a bore of a narrator, and painfully flat as a character. Things just happen to her and she doesn’t drive the plot at all. That’s pretty realistic for a character whose frontal lobe is far from full development, but she seems to have had zero growth since her adolescence. This is probably meant to be intentional, as time seems to have frozen for her during that ill-fated senior year, but that feels like a cop-out for poor character development. She’s difficult to relate to and is never held accountable for her actions. She sees herself as this doe-eyed little innocent thing, and the story never actually challenges that or holds her accountable for her negligence or cowardice. This could have been a powerful story about unresolved trauma, but it’s kind of just a thriller.

I have a lot to say about the final act but I don’t want to give it away. My friend (who read it at the same time as me) compared it to a Lifetime movie and I really couldn’t have conceptualized it better than that, so I think that’ll suffice. And honestly, If someone pitched it to me as “a dark academia lifetime movie in a book,” I’d be all for it and probably really enjoy it.

Final word: throw out the Secret History comparison, that’s absurd. But if you’ve already read through all the DA BookTok recommendation lists and you want a YA-esque thriller in a spooky academic setting, this is certainly worth the read.

(…unless you don’t want to read about suicide, self-harm, etc. from cover to cover. This book didn’t set out to glorify or romanticize it, and I didn’t find it particularly gory or gratuitous, but it is certainly sensationalized and a major recurring part of the plot.)

[Susanna Neri · Rating 3 out of 5]

un'atmosfera rarefatta e soffocante, un college isolato sulle sponde di un lago canadese, omicidi che sembrano ripetersi a distanza di anni. Ci trascina lentamente nelle gelide acqua del lago, manca forse il colpo di scena ma è comunque una lettura coinvolgente.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was into it! It kept my attention which is a feat these days! It was sad without being as BLEAK as I find some thrillers. Though I definitely spent the last third of the book internally yelling the answer at the protagonist.

Owned physical book 1/2 for the month
Overall owned book 1/5 for the month

[Eileen · Rating 2 out of 5]

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 infirmary with two slit wrists. A few weeks later our roommate Deirdre Hall was found in the lake, her neck broken. It was determined at the inquest that she jumped from the Point, landed on the ice, and then slipped into the water. A month after that I watched as Lucy, followed by her brother, Matt, walked out onto the thawing lake and vanished beneath the ice. Could it be that there is something about this place that makes these events recur? Or is somebody recreating the events?

It all sounds very promising, but I am so disappointed. My problem is mainly with the pacing that is terribly slow, especially in the beginning, it took me like forever to get into the story that unfortunately never managed to captivate me. It annoys me that the author describes the same things over and over again; like the sound of the ice, how the lake freezes and faces paling or blushing. Also I couldn't connect with any of the characters that are mainly secretive and/or manipulative. Jane, the main character, is unbelievably oblivious, naive and 'blind'. I just had to know if she would ever figure out what I as a reader already knew.

I really wanted to like this book and it could have been good, but for me it lacked in the execution and it lost my interest along the (reading)way.

[Darren L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 Goodman's The Lake of Dead Languages better. It seemed much more realistic, more actually possible to occur. There was also a chilling theme that I would have missed when I was younger -- the past is never really past, never really over. It stretches into the present and future in a way that the very young simply don't see, can't see. And I found that even more frightening than the series of young girls who died in suspicious ways. I liked the elegant use of language here, but (thank goodness), I never found it to be a pretentious novel. Nor did I ever find it to be obnoxious in its "life lessons." Professors have more of an impact on students than they can ever imagine. That's another scary thought. And similar to "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" this novel shows that teachers are all too human -- with flaws that can (and do) touch the lives of their students in horrific ways. Brava, Ms. Goodman. Brava, indeed.

[Sabra · Rating 1 out of 5]

The main character was completely thick. I don't understand why everyone was so enamored of Lucy, she was basically a pretty girl, but a bit of a sociopath. And the dim, but well-intentioned main character just lumbers along, doing stupid things, believing stupid things, and basically being completely clueless about anything.

The author hits us over the head with a completely obvious "bad guy" but the main and supporting characters are all too thick to see it. And if all that wasn't bad enough, the main character is the townie girl with an inferiority complex - a plan jane, who (lord help us) is actually named Jane.

By about halfway through the book, the ending was so obvious and I just wanted it to be over.

And seriously, yet another adopted kid? That was clearly supposed to be a big plot twist/surprise ending, but it was again so obvious. The author was so heavy handed with the foreshadowing, like she things readers are complete idiots.

[Steph · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good novel, and I enjoyed it a lot. It kept me interested until the end. The ‘action’ scene at the ending was a little overdone, but I guess it was plausible.... I’m not sure. I just kept thinking someone else could have helped the main character out just a bit more, then.
Vivienne Benesch is the narrator, and she was great with the different voices of the characters, and the pronunciation of Latin and French.

3.75 stars, and recommended to those who love those slightly atmospheric novels that belong in all girl schools, have murder in them, and where you can’t trust anyone.

[Lori · Rating 1 out of 5]

A book where every plot "twist" can be spotted a mile away by the reader, but always takes the heroine by surprise (trust me, we shouldn't have an advantage - the story is told from her point of view). Nice added touch - she has frequent flashbacks to her childhood, thus establishing that she has always been the type of person who could go the zoo and be surprised to find a lot of animals there. Added bonus: the author apparently has studied latin, which means we all get to read a lot about people teaching and learning latin.

[Arybo ✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.75

Plot twists che si vedono da un chilometro ed una protagonista con gli occhi foderati di prosciutto. L’unica nota positiva è l’atmosfera del lago e della scuola (dark academia spalmata ovunque).

[Nina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was alright, I loved the references to Metamorphoses and the Aeneid but the pacing was sooo slow. There was too much ice and there were too many murders + it was kind of predictable 🥴

[Sofia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dark academia at its finest: abbiamo la scuola elitaria, il mistero, i riferimenti alla letteratura greca e romana, che in questo caso si mescolano al folklore e alle leggende della scuola, rendendo il tutto ancora più interessante. È un libro che esplora benissimo e in maniera realistica molte dinamiche femminili, dato che tutte le protagoniste sono donne molto diverse tra loro e ciascuna viene ben approfondita. Mi è piaciuto molto anche come si è sviluppata la storia, smontando e ricostruendo pezzo per pezzo ciò che pensavamo fosse accaduto e l’ambientazione, misteriosa e stregata, ha reso tutto ancora più bello. Se proprio dovessi trovare un difetto è che molte parti del mistero le ho trovate molto ovvie, ma per me è stato comunque un libro pazzesco e particolarmente perfetto per la stagione autunnale che sinceramente meriterebbe molto più hype.

[maira · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️ 4.5

quello che più mi è piaciuto di questo libro sono i vari riferimenti alla letteratura greca e romana che si mescolano alle leggende della scuola (amate le vibes dark academia) che affondando le radici nel passato della protagonista. Il lago, che fa da sfondo alle vicende, diventa una presenza costante che non abbandona mai il lettore.
Un thriller sicuramente avvincente e carico di suspense, peccato però per alcuni passaggi e per il plot twist “finale” un po’ scontati a cui ci si arriva facilmente già da metà libro. Altri momenti invece, soprattutto i racconti del diario (altro aspetto che ho amato), mi hanno lasciata con il fiato sospeso per tutto il tempo, soprattutto per come i vari pezzi delle vite dei protagonisti si alternano e si rimescolano, proiettandoci in una storia sospesa fra passato e presente.
Leggerò sicuramente altri libri dell’autrice!

[rory · Rating 4 out of 5]

this truly is a “we have the secret history at home” book but sometimes what we have at home can also be quite delicious

[Suzanna Tempesta · Rating 1 out of 5]

A book that starts off really good, and ends up...just bad.
Voice and Overall
I really liked the hook of the Latin classes, and I thought the beginning was good also. But after the introduction of all the characters, there was a big, and I mean big, downturn in the quality of the book.
At some point I felt like I was reading a chick-flick; with all that nonsense about hiding her diary and being worried about what Myra Todd (I think that's what her name was) would say. Another big thing I didn't like was that she was divorced and had a child, but the divorcee or the child didn't really come into the book that much, they seemed like an afterthought or filler. Why put something there that you're not going to use?
Characters
The characters were cliche and boring, and not one of them had any depth. The main character sounded like she was still a teenager; in the middle of the book she seemed that she had forgotten she had a daughter. The repetition of the lake and it's frozen-ness was boring after the first few times, and the authors pathetic attempts to make her sound like 'one of the wild kids' by adding her drug use was random. She's reminiscing about her childhood and then talks about her friends' 'exquisitely rolled joints'. If you don't intend for the material to relate to the story, don't put it in there. Her longtime obsession with that woman was...weird...
The girls of the school sounded very stereotypical goth, depressed type. It's hard for me to believe that all the girls were that way. The main character talked about their eye makeup more than anything else, and that was very annoying. The 'cheap teenage symbolism' was just that, and that weird thing about one of the girls sneaking bits of the main characters diary into her homework didn't make sense, although I suppose it shouldn't have. I hated how she called them by their Latin names (even though it sort of related to that ritual thing), but it got confusing when the counselor called them by their real names... The 'rituals' and the 'three sisters legend' were intriguing, but it felt immature.
The teachers that were described were one dimensional, and the fact that they were described made the book even more chick-flick-y. The best character was the counselor, she made sense.
Setting
The name of the school 'Heart Lake Academy' sounded like something out of a badly-written teenage romance novel. The three sisters legend was interesting, but overworked. The lake was a nice touch, but it wasn't as deeply metaphorically used as it could be. I felt, as a reader, that the metaphor of the lake was explained to me, when I could have actually figured it out myself; that's the whole point of a good writer, to leave the reader wondering but content. I didn't finish the whole book, but I didn't really like how everything was explained.
Dialogue
The dialogue sounded so cliche and stinted. It felt like the author just picked phrases from soap-operas and put them in there.
Flow, Tone, and Voice
The only thing I really enjoyed about the book was how well it read. It was, for the most part, paced very well and written with nice flow (although some parts seemed boring and to drag on, but not a lot). The tone seemed to change from 'badly written teenage novel' to 'chick-lit' to 'mystery'. The voice at times could seem very mature and then also very immature.
Overall
I give this one start because of the nice flow and beginning. Everything else was just badly written. It had nice potential, but it was squandered. I didn't finish it because, honestly, I didn't find it worth my time.