The Lake House is part survival story, part paranormal thriller.

I enjoyed Sarah Beth Durst's writing style and flew through the book. The friendship between the three girls was well developed and kept me engaged until the end . There was a lot going on when the supernatural stuff came into play and the story felt crowded. The survival plotline had enough meat on it's own to carry the book.

I will read more of Sarah Beth Durst's books as I enjoyed her writing and character development.

Thank you to HarperTeen and NetGalley for the gifted e-arc!

I was truly invested in this story - until the author introduced a supernatural element with no warning - and one that did not ring true for me. I still enjoyed the story but was not invested as much in it. I liked the survival aspect of this story and feel it would have been better if the author focused on that instead.

I greatly enjoyed this book! It was a wonderful exploration of teen girl friendships set against the backdrop of a mysterious, spooky camp where they have been stranded. I thought the pacing was a tad slow at the beginning but once we were going, WE WERE GOING. Some things genuinely shocked me and this was overall a very fun book.

A great premise that somewhat delivered. I liked the friendship that developed between the girls, and the atmosphere was somewhat spooky.

A good, fun read. Thank you Netgalley and HarperCollins Children's Books, HarperTeen for the ARC.

2 stars. I did not like how immediately the story started and that we only got some information of the characters past in bits and pieces throughout the story. I think having a bit more emotional connection to the characters before the trouble started would have made more of an impact. I also did not enjoy the supernatural element because it felt tacked on and not integrated into the story. It felt superfluous and as if the author was like hmmm supernatural things are more marketable what if I add that in, The story and action was propulsive and I enjoyed that it did feel as if there were stakes in the story. I did enjoy the mental health representation because for the most part Claire's mental health issues felt true to life. I would describe this book as feeling as if the author saw a bad horror movie and said now what if I turn that into a book.

OMG this book had so much potential and I was sooooo sad that I didn't enjoy it as much as I should have.

I honestly was kind of bored... there was no terror or mystery or fun involved in this thriller. The jump scares were not fun, the mystery DID NOT MAKE ANY SENSE and I honestly don't know why I kept reading.

I really really REALLY loved the characters so much and I loved the friendship between them, BUT the book should not have been advertised as similar to Yellow Jackets. That was just bad marketing because it never even touched that level of danger.

Overall, I kind of wished I stopped after the first "jump scare," I hoped for more from these book characters.

This was requested when I first found out about NetGalley and I had requested so many ARCs that I could not get to all of them before they were archived. I really wanted to get to this one, as it seemed interesting. If I can find this somewhere for a reasonable price, I will try to get it! I am giving this book three stars, as I don't want to give it a good or bad rating, since I did not get to it and we have to leave a star rating.

Oh my. This was not what I expected from Ms. Durst. It has all the twists her books usually do but was much darker, on every level. I *loved* it!!!

The Lake House by Sarah Beth Durst is basically summer camp, but with everything gone wrong. With the tag line: Three Strangers, one secret waiting to be unleashed, I had some really high hopes for a good YA thriller. That was kind of what I got.

The Good:
Sarah Beth Durst definitely knows how to grab a reader and pull them into the story. I read the first chapter and I was invested. I wanted, no, needed to know more. Three completely different strangers all stuck together, it was a mystery in itself worth solving. I liked that the ending was wrapped up nice and neat with a big old bow on top. That’s about where the good ended for me.

The Bad:
There was a lot of dialogue between the girls that felt like rabbit trails, or chasing squirrels. I thought it might go somewhere, but never really did. Possible spoiler warning - I was not expecting a fantasy element. Everything I read about this book left me to believe this was going to be a straight up classic thriller. So just be prepared. I also felt like it started to get simple near the end and lost the pull it initially had on me.

The Mentionable:
Gunshot Death, blood & gore, there is a suicide, panic attacks, anxiety, broken bones, fire.

I think I went into this expecting something completely different then what I got. Maybe my own assumptions getting in the way. Whatever way you look at it, I don’t know that this was necessarily the book for me. There are those out there that I know will love it and I look forward to hearing their reviews and seeing what they loved about it!

Huge thank you to Harper Collins Frenzy for the gifted e-Arc. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

For the reveal of evil entity in a cave, this book needed to be a lot more scary. At no point during this read was my heart racing or was I frantically reading to find out what was happening. While I know this is only YA, I have read some truly terrifying YA horror suspense books and this just didn’t do it for me. I appreciate the representation of the type of anxiety where you can only jump to the worst case scenario and I think that was well done. Plus, I enjoyed how all three girl’s personalities balanced each other out but I just wanted this to be way more scary.

This was a DNF for me at about 20% I just couldn't get into it at all, I didn't enjoy the characters and I felt it was super predictable, just not the book for me.

Thank you Frenzy Books for the eARC! This book sounded like an interesting horror, but it wasn't as spooky or thriller-y as I had hoped it would be. I felt a bit indifferent and bored at times when the plot was all about the girls trying to find their way off the island. The plot twist near the end wasn't too satisfying either. One thing I absolutely loved though, was the friendship between the girls. I loved how supportive they were of each other, and they were just such a great example of a sisterhood. Also, yay for the female mechanic rep and the chronic pain and anxiety rep. Well done! I would highly recommend this book more for the relationships and characters rather than the "horror" aspect. Still a decent read nonetheless.

This book was an alright read for me. It was very predictable and hardly did not like some of the characters in it. I do love the aurthor fantasy books, but her new thriller was disappointed in a bit. The cover is pretty creepy and cool looking. Thanks for letting me read it.

3.5/5 Stars

Claire, Reyva and Mariana think they are heading to Camp Lake House, in the middle of the wilderness for the summer. When they arrive, they discover that there was a fire, leaving no survivors. Then they find a dead body in the woods, and quickly learn that they aren't the only ones on the island. Someone is hunting them and they need to work together to survive until they can be rescued.

Based on the cover, I thought it was going to give spooky/horror vibes, but I didn't get that from this. Although enjoyable, I was hoping for more than just a generic survival story. I wanted mass murder and destruction. I did like the friendship that developed between the girls through out the story. I liked how much they helped and supported one another, especially with Claire's panic attacks. I did think the twist ending was interesting, and I liked the angle it took, for the most part. The ending, ending annoyed me a bit <spoiler> with the girls going back to the island </spoiler> but alas, you can't win everything.

Overall, a very quick read, but I'm not going to lie, I don't think this is going to be anything memorable for me.

The Lake House by Sarah Beth Durst is a decent younger YA horror mystery thriller. Since the time I read it, it doesn't stand out to me as much as it did at the time. I wish it felt more gritty and realistic in comparison to how it turned out. Honestly, though, I do remember that I found myself very annoyed by the characters throughout. I kind of wish this was a bit more of a survivalist story.

This one was just okay. When I requested it, I was not aware it was YA. I was exoecting this to be much scarier than it was. This was a me problem though and I would likely not have requested it if I had known it was YA.

I really enjoy an isolated thriller and this one didn't disappoint. The atmosphere was creepy and the book was full of twists and turns. I found it completely engaging from beginning to end.
This is a YA book, if you are accustomed to reading adult thriller / horror books, please keep this in mind. It does read for a YA crowd as intended. With that said I'm accustomed to reading adult thriller / horror books and really enjoyed this one.

I love Durst's standalone fantasy novels, so I thought I'd give this YA effort a try. I understand that tropes come with YA, and they were definitely present. It's a nice addition to my horror section for my students, however.

This book was amazing!

The girls are so human and lovable, I really enjoyed watching them grow, they are not the same at the end of the book and their arc was flawlessly executed.

The setting was well-developed and the girls got immerse in it, they interacted with nature and have conflicts and that's the main purpose for that.

And that plot twist, let me tell you, I wished for it but I couldn't think it was possible. I was so wrong and I loved it.

The writing style was dynamic and I can't wait to read more books by Sara Beth Durst.

I love a good horror and suspense book (when its done well). I had such high hopes for ͓̽T͓͓̽̽h͓͓̽̽e͓̽ ͓̽L͓̽a͓͓̽̽k͓͓̽̽e͓̽ ͓̽H͓͓̽̽o͓͓̽̽u͓͓̽̽s͓͓̽̽e͓̽ based on its synopsis because it seemingly had all of the elements that I love in a good horror and suspense book. Let me mention that I have never read anything by Sarah Beth Durst before, so I was unfamiliar with her writing style, which I was also excited for because I love reading writings by new-to-me authors. Unfortunately, this was a little lackluster for me. There were parts that were rushed and others that were slowed down, which made things feel unorganized. The survival scenes were amazing, which makes me think that the author dove deep into those scenes. While this was amazing to read it also further emphasized the lull of the non-survival scenes. Overall, I did enjoy reading this book and would still recommend it to others to read.