Lake Effect
As I am wont to do, I coined a random phrase to describe a certain type of book. This time, it was in a column that I occasionally penned for a small newspaper, and the term is Mountain Reads. It was the end of May…and it was 2021. Ergo, we were all hankerin’ to travel, so I shared some books that weren’t really “beach reads,” but would still make good holiday reads. I decided to phrase it that way because I’m not really a beach-read kind of person (at least the way publishers try to market the term and the books they deem to fit), but, well…here, let me just share some of the text:
“These books might still be relatively fun and breezy — I mean you’re presumably on vacation after all — but Mountain Reads require just the tiniest bit more effort than a traditional beach read. I’d argue that the end result feels a little more triumphant too. No, we’re not talking about scaling Mt. Rainier, because that’s akin to reading Tolstoy on holiday. The following books are more in line with Nobscot Hill [local reference alert; go ahead and insert whatever kind of altitude-gaining hike you might do with young-ish children]; a little bit of huffing and puffing grants you with the gift of reflection over a beautiful view.”
Anyway, this is all to say that Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney (The Nest, Good Company) knocks it out of the park again, and her third novel, Lake Effect, is a great one to take on vacation. (I myself read some of it while in the North Carolina mountains, making this a literal Mountain Read for me.) Lake Effect is a Gobble Up book (™️?), a Mountain Read (™️?) & possibly a Bibliotherapy 3b (June 6 post) (also maybe ™️?) if that’s your thing. Excuse me while I fiddle around with the elaborate conspiracy-theory-esque string board I have here to classify books.
Lake Effect is “sprawling family drama” (probably ™️, but not by me) en force. Get sucked into the origin stories of two Rochester families between the 70s and 90s, get totally invested in every character, and then get to the point where you can’t put the book down because Sweeney does that great trick of compulsively but strategically doling out “how they all end up” details and you Just! Need! To! Know!
originally published on instagram