NPR Book of the Year 2020
Electric Literature: One of 55 Books by Women and Nonbinary Writers of Color to Read in 2020 | Lit Hub & The Millions: Most Anticipated Books of 2020 | Ms. Magazine: Anticipated 2020 Feminist Books | Refinery29: Books by Black Women We are Looking Forward To Reading | One of The Millions’ Most Anticipated Reads of 2020 | Amazon Book of the Month Pick | Audible … Women We are Looking Forward To Reading | One of The Millions’ Most Anticipated Reads of 2020 | Amazon Book of the Month Pick | Audible Editor’s Pick | Essence’s Pick| Glamour’s Must Read | Ms. Magazine’s Anticipated Read of 2020
A startling debut about class and race, Lakewood evokes a terrifying world of medical experimentation—part The Handmaid’s Tale, part The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
When Lena Johnson’s beloved grandmother dies, and the full extent of the family debt is revealed, the black millennial drops out of college to support her family and takes a job in the mysterious and remote town of Lakewood, Michigan.
On paper, her new job is too good to be true. High paying. No out of pocket medical expenses. A free place to live. All Lena has to do is participate in a secret program—and lie to her friends and family about the research being done in Lakewood. An eye drop that makes brown eyes blue, a medication that could be a cure for dementia, golden pills promised to make all bad thoughts go away.
The discoveries made in Lakewood, Lena is told, will change the world—but the consequences for the subjects involved could be devastating. As the truths of the program reveal themselves, Lena learns how much she’s willing to sacrifice for the sake of her family.
Provocative and thrilling, Lakewood is a breathtaking novel that takes an unflinching look at the moral dilemmas many working-class families face, and the horror that has been forced on black bodies in the name of science.
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How far are you willing to go when your family is in debt, you need money for school and health insurance for your mother who is suffering from mysterious ailments? That’s Lena Johnson’s dilemma when she agrees to drop out of school for a year and be a part of secret research program in a remote town called Lakewood. I had a hard time putting this book down – it’s riveting and terrifying. Highly recommended!
I’ll give this one a 2.5 as I was VERY disappointed.
I was extremely excited when I read the synopsis for this book and counted down to publication day. When I bought the book it took me about 3 months to get around to reading. That should have been as sign.
The idea of the government conducting experiments on minorities without their knowledge is not a new concept, but I was REEEALLLLY hoping this would be a fresh take.
For me, the writing was disjointed, slow paced and hard to follow along. If there is action in this story, I was not interested enough to stick around for it.
After finishing this book I told my husband that it was one of the few books that left me feeling as though I wasted my time.
I couldn’t wait to get finished because it was so disturbing but based on actual events.
I finished the book but the character could have been richer and the events in the plot less anesthetized. the heroine’s stoic response, her inner response, to her situation was odd.
Did not finish. This is not my preferred genre so take that into account.
Kind of hard to follow at times. Back and forth In time and characters. Not really sure what the “experiments” were for. Didn’t really care about the characters.
Even though I’ve finished it a while ago, it is deeply embedded in my soul. WOW!
A very unsettling read – not difficult to see it as happening. Well done!
Lakewood
by
Megan Giddings
3 Stars
First of all, thank you to the author and publisher for providing an ARC of the book for my review in a Goodreads giveaway. I enjoyed the book and would probably give it 3.5 stars if Goodreads allowed that; the story held my attention, I liked the characters and the writing was pretty good (although I think there’s room for some editing before the final version). Nonetheless, I just didn’t know what to make of the book. I felt like I wanted something more from the story, like it was building up to something huge, and in the end it was kind of a letdown. The something huge just never came. The big reveal at the end didn’t even make a lot of sense to me. What happened at the end of the story (I won’t spoil anything with more details) exposed the bad guys to the world and yet I had the impression that they did it themselves. Unfortunately, after an otherwise enjoyable read I was left scratching my head a little.
A better editor would have greatly improved this book. It was a tale showing how Black people from generation to generation are victims of unethical testing and experiments but as Igot further and further into the book, it became more and more flat. Nothing was really exposed or resolved so other than finding out that previous ancestors had been involved in similar experiments, there seemed to be only hopelessness.
Devoured this book.
Confusion at tines
Megan Giddings’ Lakewood is a gripping thriller of ideas in the tradition of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, depicting a terrifying world of public complicity and government-sponsored malpractice. Giddings asks: What happens when our want to be useful is weaponized against us, when the only way we see to help others is to invite harm upon ourselves? This is the rare debut that feels utterly of the now, unearthing our shared past even as it charges the reader to imagine and enact a better future, fast as they can.
Like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale or Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives, Lakewood compels even as it unsettles. Megan Giddings writes with a scalpel and I’d follow her characters anywhere.
An impressive debut. Megan Giddings has produced a novel of great emotional intensity. Her brilliant storytelling skills are on full display in this story which unfolds with subtle prose that deftly explores powerful themes of family, loss, responsibility, and friendship. Lena Johnson is a masterfully rendered protagonist, reminiscent of the characters of Toni Morrison, Gayl Jones and Jesmyn Ward, while appearing utterly new and fresh.