Mistik Lake (Melanie Kroupa Books) [Hardcover]

Martha Brooks (Author)

Book Description

Series: Melanie Kroupa Books | Publication Date: August 21, 2007

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 reeling. Then Odella meets Jimmy Tomasson, whose dreams of prophetic flying fish seem to have led him to her. In the heat and tenderness of their deepening feelings and in his belief in her, Odella begins to find the strength to unravel the web of secrets that has ensnared them all.
 
This stunning novel, written in spare, elegant prose and told from multiple points of view, explores the lives of three generations of women in one family, revealing what happens when you don't have the courage to follow your own heart, and what can happen when you do.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Brooks's (True Confessions of a Heartless Girl) keenly observed novel interweaves the lives of three generations of women overshadowed by secrets. While the narrative focuses on Odella, whose mother leaves the family (and the country) with a lover, then unexpectedly dies, the author also rotates through the perspectives of other characters. It falls to Odella's great-aunt Gloria as much as to Odella, the oldest of three sisters, to give readers a sense of Sally, Odella's guilt-ridden mother. Mistik Lake plays an important role: Sally alone survived a tragic accident on the lake as a teenager, and the small Canadian community, where both Gloria and Sally grew up, serves as the backdrop for the major revelations in the book. Readers may have trouble tracking all the ways various characters connect; the grandfather of Odella's first love, Jimmy, tells her, We are all related, one way or another, if you go far enough back, and it certainly seems to be the case given how the characters' histories intersect. But all of the characters seem distinct and real, thanks to the author's exceptional skill with details (Odella watches Jimmy's grandmother prepare breakfast: She begins to move around her kitchen—silently, like a ship with sails. I can see the ancestors in her face). Everyone suffers, but the momentum remains steady and, in the end, it is the author's ability to convey the characters' love for one another, as complicated as it often is, that floats to the top. Ages 14-up. (Sept.)
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From School Library Journal

Grade 8 Up—In a prologue, readers learn that in 1981, three teenagers died while joyriding on frozen Mistik Lake in Manitoba. Sally was the sole survivor. The story then alternates between Odella, Sally's oldest daughter, beginning when she is nine; Sally's Aunt Gloria, Odella's beloved great-aunt; and, later, Odella's boyfriend, Jimmy. Summers are spent at Mistik Lake, where Gloria has a cottage that she never uses. There, Odella, a perceptive girl, becomes attuned to her mother's sadness and alcoholism. Sally leaves her husband and daughters for an Icelandic filmmaker when Odella is 15, and the devastated family struggles to function without her. However, they continue to vacation at the lake, where Odella meets Jimmy, leading to a romance that helps sustain her in the aftermath of her mother's sudden death. Much of the mood is pensive as characters suffer but eventually break through. Gloria, whose homosexuality has been kept a secret, eventually brings her partner to meet Sally's girls; and Odella starts to forgive her mother and begin an adult life. Jumps back and forth in time and perspective make reading somewhat bewildering at times, but they do allow more intimate characterization. Smooth writing contributes much to a story that will enable readers to care about Odella's coming of age. Readers seeking a love story situated in family difficulties will find a realistic choice here.—Suzanne Gordon, Peachtree Ridge High School, Suwanee, GA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR); First Edition edition (August 21, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374349851
• ISBN-13: 978-0374349851
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #904,380 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read It, January 7, 2010

By 

Miss Reader - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mistik Lake (Melanie Kroupa Books) (Hardcover)

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.

5.0 out of 5 stars Teen Odella is haunted by too many family secrets, July 11, 2008

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mistik Lake (Melanie Kroupa Books) (Hardcover)

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.

5.0 out of 5 stars Richie's Picks: MISTIK LAKE, September 5, 2007

By 

Richie Partington "Richie's Picks" (Sebastopol, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mistik Lake (Melanie Kroupa Books) (Hardcover)

"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.