I was so excited to pick up The Girl in the Lake after hearing so much about The Forgotten Girl. While this wasn't what I was expecting in terms of horror, I did enjoy some of the historical aspects that Brown included in the story. 3.5 Stars

The Girl in the Lake focuses on Celeste who is spending a couple of weeks at her grandparents house with her brother and cousins. Before heading to the lake, Celeste takes swimming lessons with the hope that she will learn how to swim. Unfortunately, due to a bad relationship with her instructor, Celeste never learns how to swim. When they arrive at the lake house, Celeste, Owen, and their cousins learn more about their family including an aunt who passed away at a young age. The same aunt is eerily identical to Celeste. Suddenly, strange things begin to happen and the kids try to figure out if their aunt is haunting the house. This book definitely excelled in the providing some historical context of what it was like for the Black community to do even the most basic things like go to the swimming pool. By incorporating family history into the narrative, the historical aspects of the book feel more personal. The pacing of the novel also worked really well. The fact that the grandparents continuously attempted to convince the children that the house wasn't haunted made the stakes of the novel even higher.

One thing that I struggled with is that while this book appears to be a horror. And while the haunting elements of the book were interesting, this book wasn't spooky at all. I'm not making that assessment just as an adult reader. I truly believe that middle grade readers won't find it spooky either so it may end up being a disappointment after looking at the cover. This doesn't mean that the novel itself isn't well written or that the story isn't good, but I do believe that cover doesn't particularly match the contents of the book. Overall, it was an interesting read and I'm definitely looking forward to picking up The Forgotten Girl.