Champ, Bessie, Tahoe Tesse and of course, Nessie the Loch Ness Monster are some of the most famous lake monsters in the world. Lake Lokakoma in Devil’s Elbow, Pennsylvania has their own lake monster, Old Lucy. However, Old Lucy is a hoax perpetrated by Lemon Ziegler’s family. That is, until an actual monster attacks. Now Lucy, her friends (Troy and Darrin), and family must navigate the fine line between keeping their decades old hoax from being found out while surviving against an actual lake monster. None of this a spoiler for Nicole M. Wolverton’s young adult cryptid horror novel, A Misfortune of Lake Monsters.
When legends bite back.
Lemon Ziegler wants to escape rural Devil’s Elbow, Pennsylvania to attend college―but that’s impossible now that she’s expected to impersonate the town’s lake monster for the rest of her life. Her family has been secretly keeping the tradition of Old Lucy, the famed (and very fake) monster of Lake Lokakoma, alive for generations, all to keep the tourists coming. Without Lemon, the town dies, and she can’t disappoint her grandparents . . . or tell her best friends about any of it. That includes Troy Ramirez, who has been covertly in love with Lemon for years, afraid to ruin their friendship by confessing his feelings. When a very real, and very hungry monster is discovered in the lake, secrets must fall by the wayside. Determined to stop the monster, Lemon and her best friends are the only thing standing between Devil’s Elbow and the monster out for blood.
Lemon lives with her grandparents, who have been perpetuating the myth of Old Lucy since they were about Lemon’s age. Like many youthful protagonists, Lemon wants to have her own life, she’s not thrilled about being “chosen” by her grandparents to continue dressing up as Old Lucy and keeping the legend alive. She’s got her friends and has aspirations of becoming a veterinarian, plus prom is on the horizon. One boy asks her to go, who she refuses but she ends up deciding to go with her best friend Troy. One day an earthquake shakes the landscape of Devil’s Elbow and shortly after, Lemon sees an actual monster rise out of Lake Lokakoma. Shortly thereafter, the boy who she shot down for the prom is found dead, chewed up by something big.
A Misfortune of Lake Monsters is as much about a lake monster suddenly appearing as it is a coming of age, teen angst/romance novel. Those two things work quite well together in Wolverton’s hands. Lemon is frustrated by her hard-nosed grandfather, he wants to see her take over the “family business” while on the other hand doesn’t see her as a more than a little girl. She and Troy fit the classic romantic mold of friends who everybody knows are in love with each other, especially Darrin. There was a definite “lived in” sense with this trio of friends, their dialogue/banter, and how they interacted when the three of them were together or just two of the three were together. Darrin and Troy helped to give the novel heart, which Lemon has in abundance. That heart encompasses her friends, her grandparents, and even her hometown of Devil’s Elbow.
The scenes involving the actual monster was quite horrific and harrowing. What hammered that home were the stakes and consequences of the monster’s appearance. I appreciated that Wolverton didn’t pull punches when it came to the scenes when the terrifying violence was happening as well as the results.
Another element I appreciated was the measured pace at which Wolverton revealed elements of the story. We are immediately introduced to Lemon and her grandparents, but not her parents. I liked getting to know Lemon before getting to know the why of her current situation. Additionally, I appreciated the gradual exposure of the real monster itself. Lemon isn’t able to get the full picture of the creature initially and it is revealed gradually. That said, I’m still turning over in my head the true nature of the monster, as its origins were a bit of a surprise to me. On one hand, its true nature could lead to more stories in this world with some of the characters Wolverton introduced. On the other hand, it was a fairly sharp turn from what I expected.
Well-drawn plucky (but not annoying) youthful protagonists, cryptids, and some horrific scenes make A Misfortune of Lake Monsters was a fun, thrilling novel.
Recommended
© 2024 Rob H. Bedford
Hardcover | 304 Pages
CamCat Books | July 2024
https://nicolewolverton.com/
Review copy purchased
