Customer Reviews

Mistik Lake

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I really liked Mistik Lake. I liked the character Odella a lot and could feel for her. There was A LOT going but it all meshed together well. I would recomend Mistik Lake to anyone.

Teen Odella is haunted by too many family secrets, including a mother's alcoholism, a great-aunt who no longer visits, and a car accident. When her mother runs away, Odella becomes confused about love and trust. When she meets Jimmy, whose dreams seem to have led him to her, she comes to realize the depth of family issues affecting all their lives in this gentle story, recommended for older teens.

"Love is an unreasonable thing -- that's something else she'd like to tell her grand-nieces back in Winnipeg. You can't predict who you'll fall in love with. Of course you can live a lie, and not follow your heart, and suffer secretly."

When, as a guy reader, I find a beautifully-written book about three interconnected generations of women with their stories of love, losses, family connections, and long-held secrets to be a totally compelling read, to be a book that demands an immediate second read, and to unquestionably be one of the YA highlights of the current year, then you've got to figure that it is one heck of a book.

In fact, I am so in love with MISTIK LAKE that I am skeptical of my ability to overstate the case for reading and sharing this stunning book.

"I don't say anything more to them. Just lie there being the filling in this sister sandwich. It's great to be here again."

Time and again I found myself laughing with total delight as the strands of story, which crisscross several time periods between the 1940's and the early twenty-first century, flow so effortlessly into one another and reveal all of the interconnectedness -- for better or worse -- that revolves around a little lake community whose name is a Cree word meaning "wood."

"Memories of every summer spent at Mistik Lake come flooding back as I give this old man my hand. He takes it, pulls me into his arms, and clasps me in a ferocious hug.
" 'Welcome, welcome, welcome!' he cries. 'Come in and meet Lilja. She's made you coffee! And cake!'
"As I'm ushered into the house I give a backward glace at Jimmy, who throws up his hands with a smile.
"His grandmother, a tiny woman, pats my hand, beaming, too, as I take her in -- her large ocean-colored eyes."

The tale of 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 a young man Odell's age named Jimmy Tomasson. But the character who is at the epicenter of the web of stories is a woman long known to all of Mistik Lake: Odella's mother, Sally McLean, nee Thorsteinsson:

"On a stone-cold night in 1981 a carload of teenagers went joyriding out on frozen Mistik Lake. The car careened around a few ice-fishing shacks, knocking one over, eyewitnesses said, then skidded and shimmied farther out on the lake, suddenly broke through the ice, and sank to the bottom. "There was one survivor -- our mother, Sally.

It is the rare young adult novel that so perfectly combines teen sensibilities and edginess and lust and dreams with an elegance of language and an unforgettable sense of place. MISTIK LAKE is truly a unique gem of a book.

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 remain unanswered. Why did her mother drink so much? What really happened during that accident at Mistik Lake when her mother was a teenager? Why doesn't her Aunt Gloria visit anymore? And why is it that everyone in Mistik Lake and Manitoba seem to know the answers to Odella's questions?

Odella's life isn't all bad. There is Jimmy Tomasson, the boy Odella met last summer. Jimmy has come back into her life and Odella is thrilled to have him. But even Jimmy seems to know more about Odella than she does.

MISTIK LAKE is the story of two generations of family and the secrets they share. Author Martha Brooks tells the story through the viewpoint of three different characters: Odella, Aunt Gloria, and Jimmy. This compelling story will pull you along, tempting you with the promise of tantalizing secrets. More than that, Mistik Lake demonstrates how far the damage from those secrets can reach.

Reviewed by: JodiG.

Reading "Mistik Lake" is like watching "Requiem for a Dream" on a day when you're really happy- You feel like crap for the after-approaching day. Not that Requiem for a Dream is necessarily a bad movie, in fact I like it a lot, but you only view it once. And the same thing can be applied for "Mistik Lake". Geez, talk about depressing. But then again, not everything can be happy-go-lucky, Disney entertainment, right? I mean after all, the world has problems going on, so after all, not everything is gonna be happy.

Mistik Lake is well written, but to an extent. I must say that I read it rather fast, since it's only 200+ pages. It did have an interesting style of writing and the events that come do get told in an interesting way. However, like I said, this book is a HUGE downer, and I would not be surprised if Prozac sales boosted after a classroom read it.

Sally is a woman who once was a happy woman, until one fateful winter night when she and a bunch of drunk friends went out for a little Sunday drive, and ended up on the ice of Mistik Lake. The car fell through the ice, and only one person survived: her. Now, ever since that fateful night, her life has been haunted. She constantly walks around, in a depressed stupor. People, including her own family, can't look at her the same anymore. Her daughters are not even feeling safe around her.

However, one night, she meets an Icelandic filmmaker, whom she starts having an affair with. She falls in love with him, keeping it secret from her down-in-the-dumps husband. Not ever telling her husband about the affair, she leaves him and flees to Iceland with this secret lover. However, an unfortunate incident occurs- she dies. The family back at home hears this, and is completely devastated. For the rest of the book, we focus on the family trying to get through the tough times and fully come to reasoning as a family.

I must say that while I enjoyed the book and thought it was very well written, I will say that I did not feel the desire to read it again. It is indeed very depressing and devastating. I have read three YRCA books so far- Mistik Lake, Deadline, and Twisted- I'd have to say that Mistik Lake would be my least favorite thus far. It's really good but you, the reader, at some times begin to wonder why you're even reading it. I felt the same way, and really, in that mindset, it is a chore to read.

Overall, like I stated, I enjoyed the book, but that's unfortunately where it stops. I do have a plan to read all the YRCA books this year, and so I had to read it some time!

Mistik Lake by Martha Brooks is about a Canadian teenage girl who is trying to cope with a myriad of issues. One of Odella's parents struggles with alcoholism and abandons the family. Odella, the oldest of her siblings, tries to maintain order for the rest of her household while also dealing with the typical trials of the teenage years.

While I did enjoy certain aspects of the story, particularly the discussions on the characters' Icelandic heritage, I'm afraid this book suffers from what I call `everything AND the kitchen sink' syndrome. With themes of guilt, identity, alcoholism, abandonment, and homosexuality -- just to name a few, this book just had too much going on with the story in order for it not to feel a bit contrived. I just really believe that young adult novels, particularly short ones, are more effective when they deal with only one or two major issues. That is probably just a personal preference, though. Your mileage may vary.