Carol Goodman

The lake of dead languages

ohseababy

somewhat like drinking a glass of hot chocolate that's been left out for just a minute too long. i found the pacing excruciatingly slow after first, and while it picked up considerably in the second part, the transition was too jarring to appreciate. the location and characters are beautiful and fleshed-out but jane (the main character) seems sterile until the very end. there's a line between the reader and the story that remains uncrossable throughout, and this distance is not the most attractive part.

definitely a book that should be on your tbr, but nowhere near the top.

Peggy Walker

I found myself very taken with the descriptive portions relating to Latin and to the approaches to teaching that subject. I didn't take Latin myself, but it made a dead language seem quite fascinating. It was interesting that the author sets this private school to be a place for misfits with students who weren't accepted elsewhere or were expelled from other schools. Otherwise it's hard to imagine that many parents would keep sending their girls to a school where suicide seemed to keep recurring. I also figured out the villain very early, and since the heroine had known her years before it's almost impossible to accept that she didn't get it. A very intense read, but very absorbing.

Chaya Vervaecke

Aaaah I don’t know what I think. One the one hand I really liked this but for some reason the last part wasn’t my favourite at all and so it left me with a mitigated feeling.
Overall I’d say this was a good (as I’ve given it 4*) but it wasn’t really what I expected it to be. 
I liked the complexity of the story line and the characters but I’ve to think a bit more about what I truly think.

Chrystal Giordano

Ashley Janssen

Aditi

Vilde

Ashley Lock

Marie

'An astonishing literary debut that will quickly establish Carol Goodman as a promising literary talent. The tense dramatic atmosphere sparkles with a cracking pace combined with startling imagination and writing prowess, The Lake of Dead Languages holds more secrets than a confessional and contains a myriad of twists and turns - a book destined for the bestseller lists' Waterstones Bookshop, UK

The lake of dead languages

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