Lakelore

by Anna-Marie McLemore Narrated by Vico Ortiz, Avi Roque

Overview

Everyone who lives near the lake knows the stories about the world underneath it, an ethereal landscape rumored to be half water, half air. But Bastián Silvano and Lore Garcia are the only ones who've been there. Bastián grew up both above
the lake and in the otherworldly space beneath it. Lore's seen the world under the lake only once, but that one encounter changed their life and their fate.

Then the lines between air and water begin to blur. The world under the lake begins to spill into the world above. If Bastián and Lore don't want it bringing their secrets to the surface, they have to stop it-and to do that, they need to work
together. There's just one problem: Bastián and Lore haven't spoken in seven years, and working together means trusting each other with the very things they're trying to hide.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Praise for Lakelore:

"In characteristically majestic prose, McLemore crafts vivid magic... A beauty both bright and deep."

—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"An astonishingly beautiful love letter to neurodivergent and nonbinary teens cast amid a magical lake setting that will pull you in right along with the characters."

—Booklist, starred review

"Like Lore, who defiantly states, “I am a brown girl, just like I’m a brown boy, just like I’m both and neither, in different proportions depending on the day,” Lakelore celebrates the strength and imprecise elegance of claiming your own truth."

—The New York Times

"McLemore successfully binds the novel’s fantasy elements to the inner lives of their characters...Readers with identities in common with the protagonists will find relief and recognition in this impassioned book, and teens in general should feel welcomed by its warmly open storytelling."

—Horn Book Review

"Plenty of appeal in the gothic turn of McLemore’s magical realism and in the interweaving of emotional and external landscapes."

— Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (BCCB)

"Lovely and deep, colourful and creeping, perfect magic."

—E.K. Johnston, #1 New York Times-Bestselling Author

"An absolute knockout. McLemore has created a jar full of glitter that I wish I could read again for the first time...One of the most important pieces of queer fiction I've ever had the pleasure to read."

—TJ Klune, New York Times-bestselling author of The House on the Cerulean Sea

Praise for The Mirror Season:

"A masterpiece intertwining painful teen realities involving injustices based on race, ethnicity, class, and gender with trauma and healing within loving, supportive families." —School Library Journal, starred review

"An empowering story of two survivors healing together... Their vulnerable, spellbinding story, colored with magic realism and achingly beautiful prose, is about healing after trauma, reclaiming your body and choices, and the empathetic understanding between survivors." —Booklist, starred review

"McLemore whips up a magical realist tale as spellbinding as the pan dulce creations described within this novel’s pages... With haunting prose and sharp insight, McLemore expertly combines the piquant with the sweet." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

"The poetic and vulnerable prose illuminates the need for more open conversation about sexuality, consent, and abuse without the limits of the gender binary...Piercing magic." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"An unforgettable story of trauma and healing, told in achingly beautiful prose with great tenderness and care." —Karen M. McManus, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of One of Us Is Lying

"A powerful, harrowing, and important story about trauma, identity, taking back power and the redemptive nature of healing. These characters will stay with me forever. An absolute must read." —Aisha Saeed, New York Times-bestselling author of Amal Unbound and Yes No Maybe So

Dark and Deepest Red:

"McLemore weaves another magic spell ... This novel will leave an indelible mark on readers' hearts."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"McLemore fashions another gorgeous novel...McLemore’s well-choreographed story will dance on in readers’ minds." —Booklist, starred review

“One of the most beautiful books I’ve read in years. McLemore is a master." —Susan Dennard, New York Times–bestselling author of the Witchlands series

"The sort of book that ruins all other books for you. Lush, hypnotic, and an absolute feast for the senses . . . McLemore has once again proved themself to be one of the finest writers working today.” —Mackenzi Lee, New York Times–bestselling author of The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2021-12-24
The rising waters of a hidden world threaten to drown Bastián and Lore, two trans nonbinary Mexican American teens, in the truths and pasts they’ve tried to cast away.

No one believes the legends about the world beneath the lake anymore. No one has seen it except Bastián Silvano and Lore Garcia. The world wouldn’t open when Bastián tried to show it to anyone else—not until Lore needed a place to hide on a day long before they knew one another’s names. Now, a mistake Lore desperately wants to leave behind has moved their family to the lakeshore, but the underwater world is not the same quiet refuge. It’s filled with living papier-mâché alebrijes, each one a representation of Bastián’s anxieties. As the once-secluded world swells above the surface, the lake’s seiches pull Bastián and Lore together again. In characteristically majestic prose, McLemore crafts vivid magic that balances scenes of overwhelming, unregulated emotions given life by the lake with soothing, sincere moments of love, self-affirmation, and gentle humor. The primary characters, Bastián (who has ADHD), and Lore (who is dyslexic), have family and friends who truly see them even as they confront trauma and internalized shame. Affinity draws them to one another, helping them toward growth that is significant because it does not erase their neurodivergence and because it is personal, not reliant on codependence.

A beauty both bright and deep. (author's note) (Fantasy. 14-18)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940176031195
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	03/08/2022
Edition description:	Unabridged

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