Lost Lake

by Sarah Addison Allen

[Leah]

Sarah Addison Allen is one of my favourite Chick Lit authors. Her books always have this mystical ability about them, that hook me in from the first page and it continually surprises me that I love her books every single time I read a new one of hers. She ALWAYS seems to surprise me with how she suckers me in each and every time, so I was inordinately pleased to see that after a couple of years without a new release (as she was dealing with a breast cancer diagnosis, and is now in remission, yay) I nearly died of surprise and excitement when I saw she was releasing a new book called Lost Lake. The cover is stunning – green, with a lake in the middle and Chinese lanterns floating overhead, and I couldn’t wait to read it. There’s a map on the inside cover, there are postcards separating all three parts of the novel and the pages have that bizarre effect, where some are longer than others. It’s a visual pleasure as well as a reading pleasure.

Is it wrong that after finishing Lost Lake I now want to board a plane to Georgia immediately to find myself my very own lost lake? It sounds SUBLIME. It sounds like my idea of heaven – with beautiful cabins nesting on the lake edge, the peace and quiet of no, or very little, people around, the lake in the middle, the trees and forest surrounding… It all sounds magical and absolutely somewhere I would die to live. I tell you something, Sarah Addison Allen knows the most perfect places to set her books and Lost Lake is the best set yet. Only a place as magical as Lost Lake can make you believe in all the goings-on that occur, it’s the kind of place where it doesn’t matter if alligators are suddenly talking to you, because that is AMAZING, and of course, it happens. Sarah Addison Allen’s novels make me believe in magic like nothing else could. Anything is possible when you dive into a Sarah Addison Allen novel and it all makes complete and utter perfect sense.

I don’t feel like I can rhapsodize enough about how much I adored Lost Lake. I loved the story behind Lost Lake, I loved that Eby and George ran such a wonderful place that people would come back year, after year, so much so that when Eby decides to finally sell the place, years after George’s death, it doesn’t just effect Eby. It effects everybody. All the visitors over the years, especially the regulars, and even the townsfolk themselves, who could be guilty of not being around enough to help Eby out. I loved that Kate and her daughter Devin decided on a whim to head down to Lost Lake to try and recreate the best summer Kate ever had (there is nothing I love more than a spontaneous road trip) and I just loved the whole community feel of the book. How Buhladeen and Selma, two regulars to Lost Lake returned once more for one finally hurrah before it was all over. Novels like this really make me believe in people once again, that if times are hard, there are people who will come around to help you out, if you need it. They were such a wonderful, ramshackle bunch of characters, whom you’d never expect to be all in one place at the same time, but it all just worked. That’s the magical of Sarah Addison Allen. She makes it work, and she makes you fall in love.

Lost Lake is amazing. It flew by for me in a matter of hours, and I could barely put the book down. Sarah Addison Allen is such a special writer, you just get so caught up in her characters that it’s very hard to wrench yourself away once you’ve completed the novel. I keep being surprised every time Sarah Addison Allen writes another book, because I keep finding them to be better and better. More magical. More whimsy. More filled to the brim with characters you love. One of my favourite characters (I loved them all, really) was Lisette, a girl without a voice, who scribbles down notes to interact, and I felt she was so beautifully written, and I loved how she had followed Eby and George from Paris, to Amsterdam, to America. I had so much hype for Lost Lake, and it filled everything I wanted and more. I adored getting to know the characters, I adored the setting, and I’ve never felt a place feel more alive than Lost Lake. I truly do want to go and live there, and I’m sorely disappointed that I can’t. It was sublime. It was everything I wanted and more, and I will be waiting eagerly for the next Sarah Addison Allen (although I’m quite lucky, I’ve got two earlier Sarah Addison Allen’s novels to devour and devour I will). Lost Lake is her best book yet, and it just made me so happy.