Men think they’re so great don’t they? They can do anything they want and it will be amazing, right? Do you sense the sarcasm? This is not the first time I’ve read a story written from the perspective of a female by a white cis man, and I doubt it will be the last. It’s that overbearing Y-chromosome shining through, you know? Some are ok. This one was just bad, but that’s not the only issue. There are racial, gender, and religious stereotypes peppered here and there as well, and most of it made me furrow my brow. The atmosphere and setting were depicted beautifully and that saved it just a little for me. This was a big disappointment for me unfortunately.

Thank you for this opportunity!

Frustrating story. I tried to get into it, but finally just gave up. The characters just drove me nuts. I am familiar with the time period and have read enough of teen pregnancy back in the day to know what it was like. But I just didn't care about enough about these characters to want to finish reading the book. DNF.

Although I found this book leaving me very sad, I could not put it down until finished. Early in the book I found myself sympathizing with the main character( Beck) but as I progressed in the book I became very frustrated with her to the point of thinking “ enough is enough, get it together, speak up, speak your mind.”
The book is set in the 1960’s southern culture around the lives of politicians , the expectations of their children, religion, race and stepping outside the box into the tawdry music industry.
Overall, it was a good read giving the reader some insight into the era.

C/W: Racism, sexism, drug use. underaged sex, abortion, forced pregnancy, misogyny, grief, mental illness, slut-shaming. manipulative relationships, underage pregnancy, forced adoption, talk about abortion.

I thought I would enjoy "Lake Barcroft" the topics it touches upon are things that interest me: religion, politics and teenagers. I left this book incredibly frustrated, not because I hated the story; I just genuinely disliked how it was told. This book was about rich white people, in politics in the 60's. doing rich white people things. If that is something that interests you, I would suggest picking it up. Oshin's writes quite an interesting bunch of characters and, apart from Beck, all of them are kind of iconic.

I suggest skipping the rest of this review if you do plan on picking this story up, it contains spoilers and please head content warnings above before reading this review further.

Oshin's in his attempt to write from a young female perspective seems to just let go of the "male gaze" (only to bring it back during sex scenes) and writes from a perspective of giving Beck no tangible characterisation or growth. In an attempt to do everything right, Beck reads as so incredibly wrong. I went to an all-girls school for twelve years and none of the girls I met read like Beck even a little bit.

Beck for all her money, grades, social and political mobility is so incredibly bland, it's frustrating. When Beck gets pregnant (by accident at 15) and wants an abortion, her grandma literally forces her to carry the fetus while doing nothing apart from slut-shaming Beck, hiding her away and then makes her give up the baby for adoption. You can't tell me a rich, white girl with that much political backing couldn't have organised her own healthcare because she literally does prior to finding out she is pregnant.

While I get not wanting to give up power or social mobility, Beck does literally nothing with it. She is aware she owns all of these things and shrugs it off.

Oshins seems to have done very little research into actually writing young girls. While I did enjoy his portrayal of Beck as an adult in her late twenties, for the majority of the book Beck is in her teens and in no way does she endear herself to me. Beck has no friendships or relationships that are meaningful (outside her romantic ones) and even her family is so incredibly toxic.

Personally, if this book was written from Beck's adult perspective looking back I would have enjoyed it far more. then I did. There was a ton of great plot points that weren't executed very well and I just want to cry because I was so frustrated by this reading experience and I haven't even touched on the poor portrayal of non-white characters or the incredibly racist way the white characters do talk/act. This review barely touches on the things I didn't enjoy or thought could have been done better.

I thoroughly disliked my reading experience of this book to the point of ranting about it. While subjectively it was a 1 star read, objectively it was ok.

Oshins seemed so focused on writing from Beck's perspective that he forgot to tell the reader a story, or that's how I felt after reading "Lake Barcroft".

Thank you to NetGalley and DeepSix Publishers for allowing me to read a copy of this book to review. All opinions are my own.